15 Rural Change in the Kosi River Basin A Capital Goods Perspective Stephen Biggs, Aviram Sharma, Scott E. Justice and Rajendra Uprety Introduction This is an exploratory study where the authors take up a number of themes. First, it consists of reflections by one of the authors on his PhD research in the Kosi River 1 command area in Bihar around forty-five years ago; 2 second, extension of that analysis to look at the whole of the Kosi River basin to include the area north of the border with India; and third, a focus on the role of rural capital goods in patterns of rural mechanization, industrialization and agrarian change. The last theme is addressed because post- Green Revolution, literature on agrarian change has often focused more on the spread of high yielding crops, animals, fish varieties, etc., (and on large technological systems, such as big multi-pur- pose dams, long canals, and use of fertilizers and pesticides), and less on the role of rural engineering technologies, such as various sizes of pump sets, tractors, threshers, combines, vehicles, hydro- power plants, etc. The authors are concerned with the use of these capital goods (intermediate goods), that are used in the produc- tion of other goods and services, in rural areas. In conventional economics terms, these goods and services come from sectors linked to the agricultural sector, such as small and large industries and trade. 3 * We would like to thank Donna Christman for editing the earlier versions of this paper and also thank the editors of the book.