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Progress and Shortcomings of Cash Transfers and PDS Evidence from Delhi
Get PDFOver a fourth of India’s population suffers acute poverty and deprivation. A critical part of concern must go to the process of extending welfare benefits to the poor, as public service delivery of these programs frequently suffers from technical flaws and administrative inefficiencies. Whereas India’s major programme for food security– the Public Distribution System – is largely criticised for erroneous inclusion and exclusion of beneficiaries, and diversion of food subsidies that accentuate the inability of people to access food, Cash Transfer as an alternative service delivery mechanism seeks to eliminate inefficiency and corruption by giving money directly to the poor. This paper compares the implementation of PDS and Cash Transfer in Delhi to look into the necessity of formulating public policy that defines appropriate and effective mechanisms to ensure food security. The objective of the study is to evaluate the possible outcome of CT as a dependable solution for ensuring food security while drawing attention to the implementation of the most popular in-kind transfer program in the country, that is, PDS, to attain food security. An empirical investigation using questionnaires-based survey covering 80 households and eight Focus Groups Discussions with beneficiaries, and interviews with concerned implementing agencies showed that both schemes formed an important basis in sustaining households’ basic needs, and had spill over effect on gender equation at the household level. Yet, exclusion and corruption continued to a larger extent in PDS compared to CT, and both lacked effective responsiveness and accountability in governance mechanisms
Problem and Prospects of Urban Agriculture in Some Wards of Chandernagore Municipal Corporation
Get PDFIn twenty first century, urban agriculture has been gaining importance and potential in developing countries. The objective of the present study was to investigate the developments and problems of urban agriculture on the special emphasis on ward numbers 28,29 and 30 of Chandernagore Municipal Corporation (CMC) of Hooghly district of West Bengal. These three wards have been chosen due to the fact that all the said three wards were composed of areas that were rural before 1995, the years in which these wards were added to CMC to provide for expansion of the town. The significant part of population still dependent on agriculture. Particular crops, especially fruits and vegetables to ensure food security to the urban consumers
Food Consumption Pattern of Cauvery Delta Region of Tamil Nadu-An Application of Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS)
Get PDFChanges in food consumption and expenditures of households in developing country have been a topic for research throughout the twentieth century. Consumption expenditure patterns and estimates of expenditure elasticities can give an indication of the potential for demand-led growth in a particular economy and also helps in assessing the food security-related policy issues. This study uses the recent household survey data of NSSO (round 68) to estimate a complete demand system for Cauvery Delta Zone (CDZ) of Tamil Nadu State, with special emphasis on the food commodity group. A Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) specification was employed for this study. The QUAIDS model is an example of the empirical demand systems that have been developed to allow expenditure nonlinearity. Price and expenditure elasticities were computed for seven food aggregates which includes cereals, pulses, milk, edible oil, meat, fruits and vegetables and other foods. The results revealed that the most of food groups considered for this study were demand inelastic implies that they are staple foods and the magnitude of the cross-price elasticities suggesting the limited possibilities of substitution among food groups. The estimated expenditure elasticities suggested that the expenditure share on these food groups would increase with an increase in real income, prices held constant. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that the QUAIDS model which allows for more flexibility is superior to the traditional AIDS model
Employment Status of Women in Rural Punjab: Dwindling Trends
Get PDFConsiderable participation of women in socio-economic, political and cultural set-up of the society is the pre requisite for the development of an economy. It is the fact that the economies which used the growth of agricultural sector as a base for their development path towards industrial and service sector growth shifted their surplus labour from agricultural sector to these sectors. Punjab has a different story regarding rural female employment. After green revolution, the state recorded tremendous agricultural growth. But this achievement in agriculture did not contribute in terms of female participation in economic activities and even this remarkable growth upto 1980’s in agriculture sector brought a sharp decline of female work participation in farm-sector. In the nineties when major economic reforms were introduced in Indian economy, the major sectoral shift was noticed in employment which in result brought a rapid shrink in the number of agricultural workers in the state. Census 2011 figures present a gloomy situation for the gender equality in work participation in Punjab. Punjab continued backward for providing equal employment opportunities for the women. High mechanisation of agriculture and low growth of a non-agriculture sector made the situation worse for women to get employment. It is high time for a gender sensitive employment generation strategy to secure the socioeconomic interests of females in the state
Credit Subsidy Policy and the Moral Hazard of Loan Waivers in the Non-Traded Agriculture Sector in Presence of Credit Market Dualism: A Three- Sector General Equilibrium Model
Get PDFThe paper is an attempt to unveil the growth-development tradeoff in the Indian agriculture sector in light of some selected recent policy measures in presence of dualism in both agriculture sector and credit market. Segmentation of the agriculture sector is addressed as traded export agriculture and non-traded agriculture sector. The dualism in the credit market is the coexistence of the formal and informal credit market. In this paper, we construct a three-sector general equilibrium model which may apply to a large class of emerging market economies. The results of the paper reflect contradictions of an emerging economy which is essentially hybrid economics in which capitalist nucleus has a conditional-conditioning relationship with an archaic structure.JEL Classification: Q14, D5
Do Disasters Discriminate? An Analysis of Economic Loss Incurred in Uttarakhand Disaster 2013 for Different Social Groups
Get PDFFrom many counts, the natural disaster in Uttarakhand caused by torrential rains in 2013 that had drawn serious attention of policymakers needs an appropriate framework of analysis to account the economic losses incurred. More so because such losses have several implications for the growth of the regional economy on account of its inter-linkages in the production, consumption and distribution processes. The present study adopts a loss assessment framework in four hard hit districts of Uttarakhand and assesses the economic loss of affected districts through both direct and indirect economic loss assessment methods. Apart from this, the present study has tried to capture the gender and the caste differentiated impact of disasters in case of Uttarakhand, to identify the most vulnerable sections and to suggest appropriate measures to reduce their vulnerability in the event of a disaster.JEL Classification – A1, C4, C8, D6, Q
Groundwater Depletion and Role of Direct Seeded Rice in Water Saving: A Move Towards Sustainable Agriculture of Punjab
Get PDFPresently, out of 20 million tube wells in the country, almost 1.3 million are in Punjab, contributing to fast-paced groundwater extraction and its depletion. Direct seeding of rice has a great potential for optimizing the water-use efficiency in paddy cultivation without any disturbing and harmful effect on its productivity, if weeds are controlled properly. A significant saving of 18 per cent was achieved for irrigating one hectare of the DSR farm in basmati and non-basmati varieties as compared to non-DSR farm. The mean overall technical efficiency was more in DSR farms as compared with non-DSR farms, with difference of about 12 per cent in basmati and 5 per cent in non-basmati fields. However, this difference was 7 per cent in basmati and 14 per cent in non basmati while calculating the average technical efficiency w. r. t water-use. Popularization of this technology among farmers in a participatory mode on a comprehensive scale needs a focused attention through capacity building of farmers
Economic Development and Female Labour Force Participation in Tamil Nadu: A Test of the ‘U’ Shape Hypothesis
Get PDFThis paper analyses the trends and pattern of women’s employment in the state of Tamil Nadu and its districts in order to find out the applicability of the “U” curve shape of female labour supply using NSSO and census data on employment for the period 1983 to 2018. Top five and bottom five districts on the basis of district level per capita income and female literacy are selected as sample districts. The results show that there has been a significant growth in GSDP of the state during 1983 and 2018, but there is no corresponding improvement in female work participation rates. Women’s employment has fallen particularly during the period 2011 and 2018 and rural areas have registered a greater withdrawal of women from workforce. The “U” curve hypothesis does not find empirical evidence and support in the case of Tamil Nadu. Strong negative effect of income and weak substitution effect of expansion of female education and lack of job opportunities have contributed towards an inverted “U” curve. If suitable measures are not taken to improve female labour market participation, then Tamil Nadu cannot harvest the benefits of demographic dividend
Energy Usage and Benefit-Cost Analysis of Castor Production in Haryana
Get PDFThe study used farm level data collected from rain-fed and irrigated castor seed cultivators from three purposively selected districts namely Rewari, Sirsa and Hisar of Haryana on the basis of highest acreage under castor crop. From each selected district, two villages were selected purposively having large number of castor cultivators. Sixty castor cultivators were interacted to extract relevant information related to various energy utilized in castor seed production using survey method. The aim of this research is to determine the energy input and output involved in castor production in the Haryana. The average energy consumption of the farms investigated in this study is 11064.18 MJha-1 of the total energy, 23.67 per cent is direct and 56.56 per centwas indirect. Renewable energy accounts for 3.49% and energy usage efficiency is found to be 5.92. The total energy input into the production of one kilogram of average castor was estimated to be 8.55 MJ. The dominant contribution to input is energy in the form of nitrogen fertiliser (32.86%), followed by water for diesel- oil (20.61%) and irrigation (19.77%). The cost of castor production per hectare is found to be ` 97412ha-1 in the region, with 52.70% of this beingfixed costs. It can be concluded that intensive castor farms are being operated in the area since the fixed cost was quite high. As a result of benefit-cost ratio (1.48) analysis, castor production was found to be economically efficient
Factors Affecting Fertilizer Consumption in Rajasthan
Get PDFThe present investigation was carried out to determine the factors affecting fertilizer consumption in Rajasthan from 1967-68 to 2014-15. The study period had been divided into following three phases; Post-green revolution- Phase I (1967-68 to 1980-81), Post-green revolution- Phase II (1981-82 to 1990-91) and Post-reform period (1991-92 to 2014-15).The regression analysis was done for the three temporal phases as well as for the overall period. High coefficient of multiple determination (R2) indicated that 90 per cent of total variation in fertilizer consumption was explained by the variables included in the linear regression model. Gross irrigated area was found to be the most important variable influencing the fertilizer consumption during the three phases as well as for overall period of study. Its coefficient was found positive and statistically significant (P<0.05). Area under high yielding varieties appeared to be the second most important variable significantly influencing the fertilizer consumption. Its coefficient was found positive and statistically significant (P<0.05) during the overall study period. The regression coefficient of rainfall was found to be statistically non-significant in all the three temporal phases of study period. Although it was positive in phase I and negative in phase II and III