Economic Studies - Mphil Thesis

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://kr.cup.edu.in/handle/32116/139

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Monitoring of mahatma gandhi national rural employment gurantee scheme in bathinda district of punjab
(Central University of Punjab, 2014) Kaur, Rajpreet; Kahlon, A. S.
The Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of Government of India was introduced primarily to enhance the livelihood of households by providing 100 days employment to the adult members. It provides alternative source of livelihood which has impact on increasing income and alleviating poverty. However, the success of this Scheme depends upon its effective implementation. An attempt has been made in this study to highlight the violations of stipulated guidelines of the Act as also to assess the awareness level regarding rules and regulations among various stakeholders. The study also seeks to understand the overall impact of the Scheme on the rural workers and whether the MGNREGS scheme has led to gender empowerment. Both primary and secondary data was utilized for the analysis. Primary data was collected by administering schedules and conducting interviews while the secondary data was collected from various published official sources. Multistage sampling was utilized. Bathinda district was purposely selected for the study due to time and money constraint. Further, two blocks Talwandi Sabo and Nathana were selected on the basis of maximum number of employment days generated by the scheme v during the reference year 2012-13. Again, two villages namely Bangi-Ruldoo and Sema were randomly selected from Talwandi Sabo and Nathana blocks respectively. One worksite from each village was also visited to collect the necessary information. Non-MGNREGS workers as a control sample attributed relatively lower wages for MGNREGS works, irregularity of its work, delay in wage payments and non availability of advance payment as the reasons for not joining MGNREGS. This led to relatively smaller participation of workers in the study area. This study revealed that this scheme had an effective mechanism of registration, job card issuance, wage payment through banks, work provision was within the periphery of 5 km from village, equal wage payment to both men and women as also labour displacing machinery and contractors were not involved in the works. However, some violations of MGNREGA guidelines were observed in the study area i.e. only 8 per cent of the respondents were provided the stipulated 100 days of employment, lack of proper worksite facilities, non affixation of photos on job cards, non-issuance of receipt against work application and delay in wage payments. Moreover, it was found that there was a lack of awareness among MGNREGS workers about the facilities\guidelines and other provisions of MGNREGA whereas level of awareness among officials was satisfactory. However, the implementation of this scheme has resulted in women empowerment, generation of more employment opportunities and improvement in the income of workers. It is suggested that intensive monitoring/evaluation of MGNREGS should be done at the State/district level to ensure the proper implementation of the scheme.
Socio-economic impact of Bt cotton in Bathinda district of Punjab
(Central University of Punjab, 2011) Kaur, Amandeep; Kahlon, A. S.
An attempt has been made in this study to assess the socio-economic impact of Bt cotton in Bathinda district of Punjab. The assessment is based mainly on primary data which is processed by applying regression analysis, Probit model and simple averages. On an average, 77.67 percent of total cropped area of the district is under Bt cotton cultivation as compared to 0.39 percent of Desi cotton cultivation. The decision of a farmer to adopt Bt cotton is significantly influenced by age and education of the farmer i.e. younger and better educated farmers prefer Bt cotton to Desi cotton. The study reveals that Bt cotton farmers are earning relatively higher net returns than that of Desi cotton farmers by Rs 19336 per acre due to relatively higher yield of 809 kg per acre as compared to Desi cotton yield of 420 kg per acre. The category wise analysis of Bt cotton farmers and Desi cotton farmers shows that farmers belonging to Others? category are earning more net returns than the Marginal and Small farmers. It was largely due to increased area under irrigation by Others? category of farmers. The social impact on the basis of perceptions of the sample farmers also revealed that Bt cotton is not adversely impacting health and reduced number of sprays has improved the quality of environment. Not a single farmer attributed the suicide cases to Bt cotton. Although Bt cotton cultivation is economically viable, yet higher seed cost hinders the pace of adoption by the Marginal and Small farmers. It is suggested that there is an urgent need for government to regulate the price of seeds of Bt cotton
Socio-economic impact of national rural health mission in jammu kashmir
(Central University of Punjab, 2014) Lone, Rizwan Ahmed; Kahlon, A. S.
The majority of population of India lives in villages and the poverty is relatively more in rural areas as compared to urban. Health has a cumulative effect on individual's life through human capital formation but unfortunately this vulnerable population is deprived from their basic right of health care that makes India to loss its human assets in the form of high maternal mortality rate, high infant mortality rate and low life expectancy. These rural and poverty ridden population can access their basic right of health care from public sector. This requires sound public health care sector especially in rural areas. With a view to reduce the rural- urban gap in health care, Government of India launched National Rural Health Mission in 2005 which aimed at decentralization of public health care sector, removing horizontal and vertical imbalance in public health care sector. The main aim of this study was to assess the financial performance, human power augmentation and community participation for promoting health care sector in Kashmir division of Jammu and Kashmir State. One non- high focus Srinagar district and one high focus Kupwara district were randomly selected for comparative analysis of public health care sector. Both primary as well as secondary data were collected. Primary data were collected by administering different schedules for Community Health Centre, Primary Health Centre, Sub - Centre, Accredited Social Health Activist, Janani Suraksha Yojana beneficiaries, health manpower, households and Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committee. iv The allocation and utilisation of NRHM funds at State level have shown a mixed trend during the years 2005-06 to 2012-13. At the District level, there was relatively higher allocation to high focus district Kupwara as compared to non-high focus Srinagar district while in terms of utilisation there was marginal difference in utilisation between the two selected Districts. The percentage of JSY beneficiaries to total institutional deliveries was relatively higher in high focus District Kupwara (73.59%) while it was only 17.74% in non- high focus Srinagar district during 2008- 2012. The shortfall of health manpower was 8.55% in non- high focus District Srinagar while in high focus District Kupwara, the short fall of health manpower was 21.67%. At Block level, the shortfall of specialists as per Indian Public Health Standard at Community Health Centre Kralpora of high focus District Kupwara was 100% in Physician, Gynaecologist, Pediatrician and Dental surgeon while in Srinagar district all the health specialists were posted except the pediatrician. Further all the four sub centres had inadequate availability of medicine, water supply and electricity except Sub centre Nandpora. The stipulated guidelines were also violated as per NRHM norm of one ASHA per thousand population, marital status of ASHAs (married) and in terms of timely incentives (10th of every month). Also as per NRHM norm, none of the selected Accredited Social Health Activist got their medicine kits restocked during 2012-13. Under NRHM norm, every village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committee should be allocated Rs10000 per annum. However, it was found that all the four selected Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition committee (VHSNC) from both the Districts received only Rs 5000 per annum. Therefore, the functioning of VHSNC in promoting rural health was not satisfactory in terms of generating awareness about NRHM and also regarding sanitation at the village level. It was also observed that there was a lack of coordination among the officials of NRHM. All in all, this study has highlighted some violations of NRHM guidelines in terms of financial and manpower stipulations. However the launching of NRHM in the State has brought about significant improvement in public health care sector yet it is not up to the Indian Public Health Standard.