Total Sanitation Campaign - Changing Face of Rural Burdwan

Burdwan District of West Bengal is considered to be both the ‘Granary of Bengal' and the ‘Ruhr of Bengal'. But the sanitation system in the villages were (and still are in many cases) non-existent with open defacetation being the predominant practice. As a result incidence of communicable diseases is widespread, and there are deaths due to Gastro-instentinal problems and Snake-bites. To improve the situation, the Government of West Bengal, along with a few NGOs had taken up the task of 'TOTAL SANITATION' for the district through the District Committee or Zilla Parishad. The programme involves promoting and cajoling villagers to install and use Sanitary Latrine in their own courtyard which are cheap and subsidised by the Govt. Progress of the programme is encouraging with two blocks of the district with about 60,000 households being already covered. Progress is on in other areas also. The Dept of Economics at the University of Burdwan, was entrusted with the duty of evaluating the progress of the work independently. The paper reports the survey findings. The initial situation, the programme, costs involved, and the evaluation results are focused upon

India’s Development Experience - A Regional Analysis: An essay in honour of Prof. Ashok Mathur

Wide regional variation has been a major characteristic of development experience in India. In the present study, the multidimensional facet of development is sought to be reflected through composite indices of development. It deals with the development trends exhibited at the National as well as Regional level during the period 1971-1995 with special focus on regional disparity in development levels. Considerable variation in the levels of development - both across states and also within each state is perceived. The disparity seems to be widening over time, specially in the post-reform period. Providing adequate infrastructural facilities, shift from Central Planning to Multilevel Planning, and breaking the myth of trade-off between growth and equity are some of the emerging policy suggestions.Regional Disparity; Development; Planning; India; Infrastructure

Total Sanitation Campaign - Changing Face of Rural Burdwan

Burdwan District of West Bengal is considered to be both the ‘Granary of Bengal' and the ‘Ruhr of Bengal'. But the sanitation system in the villages were (and still are in many cases) non-existent with open defacetation being the predominant practice. As a result incidence of communicable diseases is widespread, and there are deaths due to Gastro-instentinal problems and Snake-bites. To improve the situation, the Government of West Bengal, along with a few NGOs had taken up the task of 'TOTAL SANITATION' for the district through the District Committee or Zilla Parishad. The programme involves promoting and cajoling villagers to install and use Sanitary Latrine in their own courtyard which are cheap and subsidised by the Govt. Progress of the programme is encouraging with two blocks of the district with about 60,000 households being already covered. Progress is on in other areas also. The Dept of Economics at the University of Burdwan, was entrusted with the duty of evaluating the progress of the work independently. The paper reports the survey findings. The initial situation, the programme, costs involved, and the evaluation results are focused upon.

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT: THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE

Debate over Growth and Development are quite old in the history of economic thinking. It is argued that development encompasses comprehensive issues like health, education, equality, and liveability while growth is too narrow a concept. This paper analyses the growth and development experience in India using multiple indicators. Development seems to have lagged behind growth in recent times. Disparity seems to have increased in the post-reform period, caused mainly by further slowing down of low-income states. Imbalances seem to have percolated across economic groups also. This leads us to believe that the remarkable growth that has occurred recently has not been egalitarian and hence development has failed to keep pace with it. Important reasons behind this may be imbalances in Infrastructural facilities and Public Investment, as well as differences in governance. Still, developmental level seems to be higher in the high growth regions, indicating the necessity of the latter for the former.Growth; Development; Regional Disparity; Reforms; Inequality; India

Productivity Growth in Small Enterprises - Role of Inputs, Technological Progress and 'Learning By Doing'

Small Manufacturing Enterprises (SMEs) in an overpopulated developing economy serve the dual role of job-creation and shifting the occupational structure. However, their contribution to the overall health of the economy are being questioned on grounds of low productivity and economic viability. Sustainability of SMEs is argued to depend on improving labour productivity (LP) through technological upgradation. In a developing economy this may be a costly proposition due to capital scarcity. So, the effect of technological changes on productivity levels has to be estimated before taking such policies. This effect is generally measured by Total Factor Productivity Growth (TFPG) which is also a measure of Technological Progress (TP). A positive TFPG implies outward expansion of the production frontier leading to more than proportionate output growth compared to input growth whereby it may be concluded that TP is leading to productivity rise. However, TFPG in the growth accounting approach is a residual measure and encompasses the effect of not only TP, but is a combination of improved technology and the skill with which known technology is applied, i.e. Technological Diffusion or Technological Efficiency (TE). The SMEs rely on indigenous resources, adaptive technology, 'on-job' skill acquisition, and, go on experimenting till they achieve the optimum mix of technology, resource, skill and organisation. Consequently, technological diffusion is more important to them rather than the 'modernity' of the technology itself. This paper seeks to disassociate the effects of pure TP from those of TEC in few selected industries within the SMEs to examine the relative importance of them in improving the health of the SMEs. We use the NSSO database on Unorganised Manufacturing sector. The reference periods are 1994-95 and 2000-01, as defined by the two latest NSSO surveys and concentrate on Food product, Textiles, Leather product, and Non-electrical & electrical equipment sectors. Mean contribution of input growth is found to be 3.17 percent p.a. while that of TFPG has been only 1.10 percent p.a. Contribution of input growth is higher than TFPG in majority of cases, indicating that major part of VAG has been possible because of increased input use and technological upgradation has had only a moderate effect. It is observed that Efficiency levels have improved in 65 percent of cases while TP has been positive in just 35 percent cases. The quantum of TEC has been higher than TP in more number of cases. In about 70 per cent of the situations where indeed there has been some technological improvement, technological diffusion has by far outstripped the role of pure technical progress. For Food product and Equipment sectors, both TP and TEC are observed to be equally important in determining TFPG. While TP plays a dominant role in the Textiles sector, TEC plays a more vital role in the Leather products sector.This underlines the importance of diffusion for improving the conditions of the SMEs and as a policy choice, Efficiency Upgradation appears more viable, effective and lucrative compared to Technological Upgradation.Productivity; Small Manufacturing Enterprises; Technological Progress; Total Factor Productivity; Frontier Production Function

Emergence of Knowledge Society: The Indian Scenario

Knowledge Society is characterised by recognition of knowledge as main source of efficiency, competitiveness, and economic growth. Since late 1990s, a large segment of mainstream media and economists have been obsessed with the continued run of ‘Knowledge Economy’ in OECD countries and its emergence in the developing countries. This new model of growth and development, depending more on human knowledge and efficiency rather than on difficult to disperse physical capital, is supposed to be more egalitarian. Proper policies in developing countries are advocated to build up large volume of ‘working capital’ in terms of human resource and corner a large market share of the global knowledge economy in contrast to their financial crunch and meagre stake in global goods-trade. In this paper we look at some of these issues in light of Indian experiences to bring out the inherent characteristics of the Knowledge Economy from amidst the rhetoric and underline the task ahead of us to truly transform India into a knowledge society.Knowledge Economy; Labour; Information Technology;

Employment and Wages in the Liberalised Regime: A Study of Indian Manufacturing Sector

Expansion of earning opportunities and increment in earning levels are dual objectives of policymakers in developing countries. The structural adjustment programme in India tried to ensure both through higher growth targets, and manufacturing sector has seen the most sweeping changes. It is now being suggested that the current jobless growth is due to high wages. The present paper examines the veracity of this by examining the trends in employment and earnings in this sector over the nineties and analysing the factors affecting them. Most of the employment expansion has been in the unorganised sector where wages have stagnated. Though real wages in the factories have declined employment therein has not increased. Interestingly, both wages and employment have increased in the mid-sized units. The relationship is therefore neither unidirectional nor exhaustive. Proper mix of labour flexibility, resource availability, and scale economies would bring dynamism to the sector and increase both employment and earnings.Employment; Wage; Manufacturing Sector; Unorganised Sector;

Environmental Costs of Industrialisation: A Study of Durgapur Region in West Bengal

Industrialization is perceived as inseparable part of economic development and developing economies adopt policies for transformation of agro-based underdevelopment regions to industry-based developed regions. However, public awareness about environmental problems emanating from industrialisation has swelled significantly and researchers have been trying to evaluate the consequence of pollution through field studies and quantitative analysis. It is now accepted that the benefit from industrialisation in a region needs to be examined against the perceived costs of increasing pollution and has to be carefully studied before allowing any further industries to come up in that area. This paper attempts to evaluate monetary costs of environmental damages in the rapidly industrialising locality of Durgapur Municipal Corporation in West Bengal. Using WTP and WTA methods, it is inferred from the study that the residents are quite aware of the problems caused by pollution from the present phase of industrialisation in the locality and are willing to pay to protect / clean the environment. The estimated valuation of environment in the area comes out to be around Rs94 million, if the residents seek to protect current environmental standards. If however, the residents want to go back to the situation prevalent before the neo-industrialisation process was set in, then the cost comes out to be a whooping Rs272 million. This is a pointer to the fact that we must look at such costs before embarking on further industrialisation process in the region to protect ecological/environmental balance and keep the system sustainable.Environmental Damage; Industrialisation; Pollution; CVM; Durgapur; India;

Wages and Employment in the Liberalised Regime: A Study of Indian Manufacturing Sector

Expansion of earning opportunities and increment in earning levels are dual objectives of policymakers in developing countries. The structural adjustment programme in India tried to ensure both through higher growth targets, and manufacturing sector has seen the most sweeping changes. It is now being suggested that the current jobless growth is due to high wages. The present paper examines the veracity of this by examining the trends in employment and earnings in this sector over the nineties and analysing the factors affecting them. Most of the employment expansion has been in the unorganised sector where wages have stagnated. Though real wages in the factories have declined employment therein has not increased. Interestingly, both wages and employment have increased in the mid-sized units. The relationship is therefore neither unidirectional nor exhaustive. Proper mix of labour flexibility, resource availability, and scale economies would bring dynamism to the sector and increase both employment and earnings.Wages; Employment; Manufacturing Sector; Liberalisation; India

INFRASTRUCTURE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA

Imbalances in regional infrastructural availability have been a major reason behind lopsided development in India. This paper examines the veracity of this argument in light of empirical results at the district level using a multidimensional approach with sub-sectoral, sectoral and composite indices of development and infrastructural availability. Significant association between infrastructural and development levels of regions is observed, though the magnitude has declined in recent years. This association is different for regions at different stages of development. The findings suggest that identification of specific requirements of different regions, benefit-cost analysis, followed by infrastructural expansion are major planks of balanced regional development.Infrastructure; Regional; Planning; India