Economic Studies - Mphil Thesis

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    A study of youth unemployment and Labour force participation in Odisha
    (Central University of Punjab, 2017) Pattayat, Shiba Shankar; Parida, Jajati Keshari
    This study attempts to explore the recent trends and patterns of youth unemployment, sectoral employment patterns and the factors influencing youth labour force participation in Odisha. This study also attempts to project the size and composition of labour force and sectoral employments by 2019-2020 to know the size of demand-supply gap and hence to suggest appropriate policy measures. This study is based on both secondary and primary data. The major sources of secondary data are NSS (various rounds) and Census of India. NSS data is used to calculate various development statistics, whereas census population data is used to adjust the NSS estimates and obtain absolute figures. Moreover, a primary survey is conducted in Balasore district of Odisha to explore the employability pattern of ITI pass-outs. The major findings of the study suggest that youth unemployment is increasing over the last three decades in Odisha. It is high among the students who passed the secondary and above level of education. The unemployment rate among ITI pass-outs is also quite high. The unemployment rate among ITI pass-outs is higher than that of general education pass outs. The falling trend of agriculture employment due to mechanisation on one hand and non-availability of jobs in industry and service sectors on the other hand are responsible for high unemployment in Odisha. Within non-farm sector, the sub sectors like construction, labour intensive manufacturing (basic and fabricated metal, plastic products food and beverages, wood and paper products, and textile and apparel) and within service sector, subsectors like arts and entertainment, retail trade, transportation and storage, and education are deriving employment growth in recent years. vi Furthermore, this study finds that poverty and household income distress are playing an important role in the process of youth labour force participation in Odisha From the demand and supply projection of labour force, it can be concluded that the demand for labour would increase by (at most in the best possible scenario) by 4.5 lakhs per annum, whereas the supply of labour would likely to increase by 6.5 lakhs per annum. Hence, a gap of 2 lakhs per annum would be generated within labour market in Odisha. Therefore, in this context, it is suggested that the policy measure that focuses on growth of manufacturing sector along with development of social sector including education and health sectors would have greater potential for generating employment opportunities. And thereby it would help sustain the growth of jobs and the structural transformation process which started during 2004-05 in Odisha.
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    Flow of Institutional Credit in Indian Agriculture: Growth and Performance.
    (Central University of Punjab, 2015) Kaur, Pushpinder; Singla, Naresh
    Institutional credit plays an important role in agricultural development as it enables the farmers to undertake new investments and/or use of modern agricultural technologies for enhancing agricultural production. The emphasis on the institutional credit is being placed since the beginning of planned development era in India. As a result, several institutional agencies such as cooperatives, regional rural banks (RRBs), scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) etc. are involved in disbursement of short and long term institutional credit. Besides, acceptance of Rural Credit Survey Committee Report (1954), nationalization of major commercial banks (1969 and 1980), establishment of RRBs (1975), establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) (1982), the financial sector reforms (1991 onwards) etc. led to manifold increase in the flow of institutional credit in agriculture. Similarly, during post reform period, Special Agricultural Credit Plan (1994-95), initiating of Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) (1998-99), and Doubling Agricultural Credit Plan within three years (2004) placed emphasis on increase flow of institutional credit. No doubt, these policy level changes have increased flow of institutional credit for agriculture, but many changes have also taken place among the various institutional sources in distribution of agricultural credit. It is also argued that large chunk of institutional credit has gone to those states, where green revolution took place and states have higher agricultural productivities than lower productivity states. The study is a step in this direction to examine the growth and pattern in flow of institutional credit in Indian agriculture by various agencies. The study is mainly based on various secondary data sources such as Handbook of Statistics of Indian Economy published by the Reserve Bank of India, Agricultural Statistics at a Glance, Economic Survey of India, etc. during 1980-81 to 2011-12. The structure of the sources of credit has witnessed a clear shift in favor of commercial banks. The share of investment credit in total credit has also declined, which may restrict the agricultural sector to realize its full potential. The study also points that institutional credit delivery to the agriculture sector still continues to be inadequate as about 30% of credit is financed by non-institutional agencies, which includes money lenders. SCBs are still hesitant to disburse agricultural credit to small and marginal farmers. There also exist large inter-state variations in distribution of agricultural credit per hectare and KCCs. Finally, the study concludes that efficiency in the credit delivery system in rural areas should be improved by revamping cooperative credit structure. Also, concerted efforts should also be made to increase the flow of indirect institutional credit for development of infrastructures such as irrigation, electricity, marketing, storage, extension services, etc which will go a long way in improving the productivity of the agricultural sector.
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    Structural Changes and Pattern of Agricultural Development in Kerala
    (Central University of Punjab, 2015) V.P. Sanitha; Singa, Naresh
    Structural transformation is a process by which the relative importance of different sectors and activities of an economy changes over time. The Kerala economy is also undergoing the transformation from traditional backward agrarian economy to a modern service sector led economy. The significance of the present study lies in the fact that the whole process of structural transformation of the Kerala economy has not so far been addressed in a detailed and comprehensive manner in the earlier studies. No specific attempt has been made to relate the pattern of agricultural development with the structural transformations in the Kerala economy. In this study, an attempt has been made to examine the structural changes and growth performance and pattern of agricultural development in Kerala economy. The study mainly covers a period of 1980-81 to 2010-11. The study has found that the share of primary sector in GSDP has declined sharply, but the corresponding decline in employment share has not taken place. Moreover, the excess labour force has moved from primary sector to secondary sector, thus causing abundance in secondary sector and there was only a meager increase in share of income from secondary sector in GSDP. The share of income from services sector in GSDP has increased sharply, but it failed to register a sharp increase in employment. Thus, it follows that Kerala did not experience a sequential growth process (as propounded by structural change growth theories) as the service sector led growth did not provide employment matching with its income and the process of industrialization failed to take off as share of income from secondary sector did not commensurate with the level of employment in the sector. The changes in land use pattern in Kerala were unprecedented during the past decades in terms of deforestation, increase in area as current fallow, increase in area under non-agricultural land, decrease in both net area sown and gross cropped area resulting in decline in cropping intensity. Irrigation intensity of only 20 per cent points that about 80 per cent of the cropped area is rain-fed. Kerala witnessed shift in the copping pattern in favour of non-food crops at the expense of food crops as crops such as pulses, rice, tapioca, cashewnut, ginger were replaced by commercial cash crops like rubber and coconut. The declining cultivable area, predominance of tiny and fragmented holdings, decline in work force in terms of reduction in agricultural labour and cultivator has made farming more vulnerable. Finally, the study has suggested some policy suggestions such as training to labour moved to secondary sector, keeping a check on the area under food crops, bringing more area under assured irrigation, strict law enforcing mechanism to avoid unnecessary conversion of agricultural land to non-farming activities, creation of ‘Labour Banks’ to revive agricultural economy of the Kerala.
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    India UK Bilateral Trade: Trends, Patterns and Prospects.
    (Central University of Punjab, 2017) Bhardwaj, Mandeep; Kaur, Sandeep
    International trade acts as an important mean which contributes significantly to economic growth by opening domestic economy to the global level (Sun & Heshmati, 2010). Recently, the trend of South-South and North-North trade agreement has shown a changing landscape towards a North-South agreement. India has shown keen interest to have large global access by setting up its policy covering east as India- ASEAN FTA, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and India-EU FTA is under negotiation process since 2007. Now, BREXIT i.e. U.K exit from EU on 23rd of June 2016, has put before India one of the biggest opportunity to form FTA between India -U.K so as to enhance the trade and make their relation strong. The use of various indices in the study has shown that the trade competitiveness between India and U.K, supports Free Trade Agreement. As of Trade Complementarity and Trade Similarity Index has shown that both the nations have high complementarity in their trade pattern while dissimilarity in their export in the third country which will enhance the trade if FTA is signed between both the countries. For, the SMART Model analysis, it has been found that India would stand benefit when trade alone with United Kingdom than with European Union (excluding U.K) and India gains more with the United Kingdom under full liberalization than restricted trade.
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    Location determinants of indian outward foreign direct investment: A study of second generation of globalization
    (Central University of Punjab, 2015) Singh, Satinder; Kaur, Sandeep
    Institutional credit plays an important role in agricultural development as it enables the farmers to undertake new investments and/or use of modern agricultural technologies for enhancing agricultural production. The emphasis on the institutional credit is being placed since the beginning of planned development era in India. As a result, several institutional agencies such as cooperatives, regional rural banks (RRBs), scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) etc. are involved in disbursement of short and long term institutional credit. Besides, acceptance of Rural Credit Survey Committee Report (1954), nationalization of major commercial banks (1969 and 1980), establishment of RRBs (1975), establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) (1982), the financial sector reforms (1991 onwards) etc. led to manifold increase in the flow of institutional credit in agriculture. Similarly, during post reform period, Special Agricultural Credit Plan (1994-95), initiating of Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) (1998- 99), and Doubling Agricultural Credit Plan within three years (2004) placed emphasis on increase flow of institutional credit. No doubt, these policy level changes have increased flow of institutional credit for agriculture, but many ii changes have also taken place among the various institutional sources in distribution of agricultural credit. It is also argued that large chunk of institutional credit has gone to those states, where green revolution took place and states have higher agricultural productivities than lower productivity states. The study is a step in this direction to examine the growth and pattern in flow of institutional credit in Indian agriculture by various agencies. The study is mainly based on various secondary data sources such as Handbook of Statistics of Indian Economy published by the Reserve Bank of India, Agricultural Statistics at a Glance, Economic Survey of India, etc. during 1980-81 to 2011-12. The structure of the sources of credit has witnessed a clear shift in favor of commercial banks. The share of investment credit in total credit has also declined, which may restrict the agricultural sector to realize its full potential. The study also points that institutional credit delivery to the agriculture sector still continues to be inadequate as about 30% of credit is financed by non-institutional agencies, which includes money lenders. SCBs are still hesitant to disburse agricultural credit to small and marginal farmers. There also exist large inter-state variations in distribution of agricultural credit per hectare and KCCs. Finally, the study concludes that efficiency in the credit delivery system in rural areas should be improved by revamping cooperative credit structure. Also, concerted efforts should also be made to increase the flow of indirect institutional credit for development of infrastructures such as irrigation, electricity, marketing, storage, extension services, etc which will go a long way in improving the productivity of the agricultural sector.
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    Growth and Equity in Fertilizer Subsidy in India
    (Central University of Punjab, 2017) Singh,Karamjeet; Singla, Naresh
    The present study examines the growth and performance and distribution of fertilizer subsidy among major states, crops and different farm size holdings in India. The CAGR used to measure the annual growth rate for multiple time periods of various variables in the study. The fertilizer subsidy has increased significantly in order to make sure the availability of fertilizers at an affordable price to farmers to encourage the consumption of fertilizers and to ensure the adequate returns on investment for entrepreneurs. The study shows that fertilizer subsidy has increased in actual terms but fertilizer subsidy as a percentage share of GDP showed both increasing and decreasing trends till 2008-09 but after that the fertilizer subsidy as a percentage share of GDP has been decreasing continuously. The study also calculated the distribution of fertilizers subsidy to examine the equity which showed the disparities in the distribution of fertilizers fertilizer among major states, crops and different farm size holdings. The coefficient of variation also showed the inconsistency in the distribution of fertilizer across major states. The study concluded that there is inequality in the distribution of fertilizer subsidy because the major share of subsidy cornered by only few states, few crops and few categories of farmers.
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    Cross Loc trade facilitation: A Case study of two TFCs
    (Central University of Punjab, 2015) Dar, Zahid Ul Islam; Kaur, Sandeep
    Structural transformation is a process by which the relative importance of different sectors and activities of an economy changes over time. The Kerala economy is also undergoing the transformation from traditional backward agrarian economy to a modern service sector led economy. The significance of the present study lies in the fact that the whole process of structural transformation of the Kerala economy has not so far been addressed in a detailed and comprehensive manner in the earlier studies. No specific attempt has been made to relate the pattern of agricultural development with the structural transformations in the Kerala economy. In this study, an attempt has been made to examine the structural changes and growth performance and pattern of agricultural development in Kerala economy. The study mainly covers a period of 1980-81 to 2010-11. The study has found that the share of primary sector in GSDP has declined sharply, but the corresponding decline in employment share has not taken place. Moreover, the excess labour force has moved from primary sector to secondary sector, thus causing abundance in secondary sector and there was only a meager increase in share of income from ii secondary sector in GSDP. The share of income from services sector in GSDP has increased sharply, but it failed to register a sharp increase in employment. Thus, it follows that Kerala did not experience a sequential growth process (as propounded by structural change growth theories) as the service sector led growth did not provide employment matching with its income and the process of industrialization failed to take off as share of income from secondary sector did not commensurate with the level of employment in the sector. The changes in land use pattern in Kerala were unprecedented during the past decades in terms of deforestation, increase in area as current fallow, increase in area under non-agricultural land, decrease in both net area sown and gross cropped area resulting in decline in cropping intensity. Irrigation intensity of only 20 per cent points that about 80 per cent of the cropped area is rain-fed. Kerala witnessed shift in the copping pattern in favour of non-food crops at the expense of food crops as crops such as pulses, rice, tapioca, cashewnut, ginger were replaced by commercial cash crops like rubber and coconut. The declining cultivable area, predominance of tiny and fragmented holdings, decline in work force in terms of reduction in agricultural labour and cultivator has made farming more vulnerable. Finally, the study has suggested some policy suggestions such as training to labour moved to secondary sector, keeping a check on the area under food crops, bringing more area under assured irrigation, strict law enforcing mechanism to avoid unnecessary conversion of agricultural land to non-farming activities, creation of "Labour Banks" to revive agricultural economy of the Kerala.
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    Availability, Affordability and pricing of the essential drugs: A case study of Bathinda city (Punjab).
    (Central University of Punjab, 2016) Bala, Indu; Kaur, Sandeep
    In recent times individual spending on health care is the common issue. This issue is manifold as linked with the availability, affordability and pricing of drugs. The present study evaluates these issues related to essential drugs in Bathinda city which is one of the blocks of Malwa region. Availability, affordability and price differences are examined across two types of drugs generic and, branded-generic at public and private drug stores, using a primary survey of patients, drug retailers and wholesalers mainly. The study also analyses the evolution of government drug pricing policies and the impact of patents on drugs. Data on drug prices is collected of commonly used essential drugs of different therapeutic classes. Affordability of the essential medicines to the ordinary people is measured by comparing the treatment cost with the wages earned by them. To compare the domestic prices with international reference prices, median price ratios (MPR) are obtained by dividing the local public and private sector median prices with international reference prices. The study discovers that availability of essential drugs in the public sector is not sufficient to meet the challenge of providing essential drugs to the entire population of the city. The Private sector is dominating for providing drugs and better treatment which has very less transparency in the pricing system and variations in the retail prices and markups are very high. Affordability level of essential drugs for different treatments to ii the ordinary people is satisfactory but not for the people living below the poverty line. Policies should be targeted to maintain a transparent pricing system and should be affordable for all as well as making them more widely available. The drug price control order should be properly implemented in fixing the MRP of branded-generic drugs
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    An economic analysis of cotton crop failure in the mansa district of punjab.
    (Central University of Punjab, 2017) Singh, Harpreet; Bhatia, Sandeep Kaur
    At the time of the green revolution, there is a huge increase in the productivity of wheat and rice. Among the various states, Punjab was the leader of the green revolution in India. But from the late 1980s, decline in the prosperity of farmers due to increasing farm costs as input prices has put heavy weight on the farmers to borrow additional from the informal lenders in the lack of access to suitable formal credit. The number of farmer suicides in Punjab is recognized as the changing agricultural relations. The major cause was the productivity of cotton crop failed to put the whole cotton belt under stress. The study was carried out in the Mansa District. However, the study area was confined to those villages where the farmers committed suicides due to cotton crop failure in 2015-16. 81 farmers from 24 villages were surveyed from 5 blocks of Mansa district. Out of 81, Where 31 families were those whose member committed suicide due to cotton crop failure. Most of the farmers in study belong to the small and marginal category of farmers those are most vulnerable from cotton crop failure due to burden of high debt. Benefit -cost analysis and sensitivity analysis were used to know loss, cost and return due to crop failure. Without crop insurance scenario, it was found that the net returns were negative and the B-C ratio remained well below unity. Therefore these results indicate that estimated amount of crop insurance is also not sufficient to Name of Student : Harpreet Singh Registration Number : 15mpheco15 Degree for which submitted : Master of Philosophy (M. Phil.) Name of Supervisor : Dr. Sandeep Kaur Bhatia Name of Centre : Centre for Economic Studies School of studies : School Of Social Sciences iv fill up the loss gap due to crop failure in case of Mansa district of Punjab. Therefore for the comprehensive implementation of the PMFBY in case of Punjab need some modifications regarding the premium rate and indemnity level and special agrarian policy for small and marginal farmers.
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    Socio economic conditions and employment status of agricultural laboures in bathinda district of punjab
    (Central University of Punjab, 2014) Sharma, Honeymeet; Singla, Naresh
    The structural transformation process in Punjab has reduced income generation in rural economy. The worst sufferers are marginal and small farmers and agricultural labourers. The principal mode of production is shifting from cultivation of operational holdings to wage labour employment. This type of structural change in rural labour employment has wider social, economic and political implications that draw serious attention. It is in this context that an attempt has been made to study the socio- economic conditions of agricultural labourers and their employment pattern in Punjab. The study has been carried out in Bathinda district of Punjab as it is a major cotton growing area and cotton is more labour intensive as compared to other crops such as paddy and wheat. A sample of 100 agricultural labourers was taken with 50 respondents from two blocks each. An analysis of socio - economic conditions of agricultural labourers shows that most of the agricultural labourers are illiterate, landless and unskilled and belonged to scheduled caste. Although they used electricity, but they have to either share it with their neighbours or stole it from main electricity wire. Similarly, they did not have any water supply connection, but they used water facilities from neighbours and common places such as dharmsala and gurudwaras etc. Only 27 ii per cent of agricultural labourers had cooking facilities. Level of indebtedness was higher among female agricultural labourers (46 per cent) as compared to that among male agricultural labourers (22 per cent). In order to come out of indebtedness, they had to sell their labour by working more on the landlord's farms. Male agricultural labourers carried out all the activities on farm, while female agricultural labourers did only some of the activities such as wheat harvesting, paddy transplanting, cotton picking, plucking of cotton bolls etc. All these works were mainly casual in nature. The average employment days in male agricultural labourers and female agricultural labourers were 234 and 110 in farm sector, and only 46 and 97 in non-farm sector respectively. There also existed wage disparities across Male agricultural labourers and female agricultural labourers. Thus, the study suggested that improving education and imparting skills will improve their bargaining power in labour market in both farm and non-farm sector. Since both male agricultural labourers and female agricultural labourers generally carried same work on farm, same wage should be provided to Male agricultural labourers and female agricultural labourers. Finally, the study concludes with some policy suggestions.