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The Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) is a premier autonomous research, training and evaluation organisation of North-West of India.

Centre for Regional Development Studies (CRDS)

Report points out salient feature of Punjab’s markets is that they are usually over-crowded and congested during the peak season; “inappropriate” procedures adopted to locate the markets; ad hoc decisions by Punjab’s Food and Civil Supplies Department to open or close purchase centres at short or no notice; delay in lifting the procured commodities by the agencies; violation of Marketing Act with impunity; underhand transactions in universal disposal of farm produce. Recommends amendments of Rules 29 and 30 of the Market Act; exportable produce should be Agmarked under APGM Act, 1937

Study focuses on to suggest a viable industrial policy for Punjab. Suggests not be merely growth-oriented but should also focus on the overall development of the state.  This will accelerate the process of integration of Punjab’s industry with the two major sectors of Punjab’s economy – agriculture and the service sectors. Recommends for providing facilities for the development of agro-based and food processing industries; to integrate incentives with the infrastructure base

Punjab has the highest per capita income in India because of rapid agriculture development based on irrigation facilities and new seed fertilizer technology. To sustain such rapid growth in agriculture output, Punjab will have to concentrate on labor intensive industrialization of rural areas. The study suggests the idea of a development center in Punjab because of the entrepreneurial spirit and talents of the government as well as the people.

Continuous growth of agricultural production at a high rate, has resulted in a sizeable surplus of a number of farm products being routinely and regularly produced in the state. Somehow the development of agro-processing industries in Punjab has not kept pace with this fast growth of surplus agricultural production. This study is an attempt to assess the scope of development of various agro-processing industries in the state. Suggests a policy package for speeding up the development of identified agro-processing industries.

Study examines the institutional and social aspects of power theft and energy conservation in Punjab; aims to develop a policy package and intervention strategies to improve the management efficiency, reduce the power theft, and improve the financial position of Punjab State Electricity Board; suggests installation of meters in tamper-proof boxes, effective and regular meter checking and deterrent punishment for defaulters; examines the existing regulations to check theft of power in order to provide organizational, management and community oriented solution.

Report finds current functioning of the system has resulted in inadequate loan recoveries, high transaction cost and overall negative profits; studies the proximate causes of poor performance and restructuring the system to make it financially noble and dynamic with a view to cultivating new markets through financial innovations.

Reviews the Punjab economic development over the last four decades in a comparative national and international context; identifies the central economic problems facing the state and outlines the nature of the structural changes required to achieve these objectives.

Points out peaking shortage of about 15-20% may be experienced; suggests new generating capacity in the system, maximize utilization of existing system through a programme of renovation and modernization of thermal power plants, reduction of T&D losses and controlling theft and pilferage of electricity in the state.

Rural Health Workers Training Manual, is a guide book for the role of health worker to make the villagers aware about the health and various diseases like cold, Anemia, SID/V.D. and many more diseases and also regarding the first aid of these diseases.

Analyses the impact of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) on agriculture in Punjab in order to estimate the gains/losses of free international trade in agriculture at the regional level; brings out and discusses the challenges on the infrastructural investment, technology and institutional fronts; suggests policy recommendations such as investments in new technology and appropriate price policy are made.

Discusses the phenomenon of ‘conflict resolution and peace’ with emphasis on the nature of socio-economic, political, cultural and religious formations in South-Asia; provides theories to analyse conflict situations after introducing the concept and meaning of conflict. Invisible violence in the context of cultural biases has been depicted; discusses three types of mediation as instruments of peaceful conflict resolution; highlights the issues and violence in the context of gender.

Discusses if the mid-twentieth century was the period of consolidation of nationalism into nation-states, the last decade of this century witnessed the assertion of ethnic identities; points out that it seems today that the bone and flesh of a self-determined nation state is either being substituted by re-invented (not organic) ethnicity on the part of the people or by an aggressive state-controlled nation;  Asserts these reinvented, rather, redefined and reformulated ethnic identities, acquire fundamentalist overtones if an element of ethnicity is articulated in its pure form. These fundamentalist assertions reinforce the ‘traditional purity of culture’ and project the perceived dominant culture as a threat.  In a multi-cultural society extremism survives and even thrives on the state of mind of a group arising out of a feeling that a threat, real or imaginary, exists to their faith which should be combated by collective violent action.

Study reveals that out of this total amount of credit taken as crop loans, 72.8 per cent has been taken from Arhtias and other private money lenders/sources and 27.2 per cent has been advanced by cooperative societies and commercial banks; also reveals that the farmers have borrowed Rs. 721/- per acre for non-productive purposes like marriages, social ceremonies etc.  Almost the entire requirement of non-productive loans of surveyed farmers has been met by the Arhtias and private money lenders.  Institutional agencies have only negligible presence in this segment of agricultural credit market. Taking agricultural credit as a whole (crop loans+long-term productive loans+non-productive loans) survey reveals that about 35 per cent of the loan/credit needs of the Punjab farmers are being met by the Arhtias and other private agencies and 65 per cent by the cooperative sector and commercial banks.

Critically examines the Punjab Government’s public housing policy; discusses the role of numerous public agencies which build homes or administer public aid to housing in one form or another and there are several non-public institutions which receive similar government assistance as public agencies; assesses the performance of these agencies under half a dozen criteria: efficiency, equity, adequacy, competitiveness, international norms of budgetary resource allocation and promotion of private construction business; finds none of the public agencies satisfies any of the criteria of good performance; reports that PUDA allocates no more than 6.8% of its resources for the urban critically poor.

Proposes a viable framework of restructuring of the existing departmental set-up to achieve the evolution of the mechanisms of Panchayati Raj Institutions and departmental co-ordination; evaluates the impact of various programmes launched by the department; suggests restructuring of the field level departments dealing with the programmes of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Institutions so as to commensurate with the 11th Schedule of the Constitution of India.

Minorities constitute a substantial portion of Meerut’s population. The area development plan for implementing multi-sectoral plans visualizes targeting the localities, blocks and clusters of villages which are dominated by the minorities, rather than only the minority population; envisages the creation of infrastructure facilities and capacity building of the human resource. The determining factors would be poor socio-economic condition, lack of skills and low income generation capacity of the family. Multi-sectoral planning for Meerut has been formulated in four broad areas: health care and facilities; formal and informal education; economic development – employment opportunities and child labor among the minorities; productive participation and development of the minority women. Special minority institutions, such as, the Waqf Board, Madrasas, Cemetery and Kabristans have also been included in the plan. The last section deals with the area development strategy for implementing the multi-sectoral plans. The situational analysis of each section has formed the basis for devising an action plan and indicating the corresponding tools for monitoring the achievement of goals in each section.

Estimates potential costs and benefits of liberalization in Punjab and its fiscal gains and losses to the Punjab State budget; focuses on removal of domestic distortions, trade restrictions, deregulation, privatization and de monopolization; make estimates of the direct and indirect, visible and hidden benefits and costs of each of the SPUs.

Record of activities of the IPSOS project during the months from April 2001 to September 2001; focuses on building people’s capacity for evaluation of development projects that influence their lives and livelihoods; emphasizes the villager’s need to utilize their local information and assess how these interventions affect their incomes, health or other aspects of their livelihoods.

Focuses on reducing the spread of HIV in high risk groups and targeted interventions aimed at prevention and behavioural change; study is based on data collected in the Union Territory; findings are of relevance for the rest of the country also because identical strategies are pursued elsewhere; cautions; that high risk groups of truckers, rickshaw pullers, migrant labour, and the street children require intensive intervention, yet they should not be isolated as a group and stigmatised as AIDS carriers; suggests that the awareness campaigns need to be directed at all the modes of AIDS transmission rather than only on safe sex practices.

Child labourers in urban settings is more intense than in the rural areas. In Punjab alone, 1.43 lakh children provide cheap labour in different professions. Of them 93 per cent are classified as main workers, and are engaged in the production of sports goods, woollens, textile, hosiery, cycle parts, agricultural implements, machine tools, steel re-rolling, cotton ginning and pressing, and the brick kilns. Children working in the roadside dhabas is a common sight. To remain in the market, these units tend to go in for child labour as the average monthly per capita earning of such labourers has been worked out to Rs. 400; children are not only paid low wages, they are also physically and sexually abused at the work place; authorities at various levels have expressed their helplessness in checking exploitation of the children as cheap labour in the sports goods industry as, unlike the dhabas and brick kilns, the industrial units employ labourers on a “putting out” basis; labourers, mostly from the economically weaker sections from the Scheduled Castes, are tempted to involve their children to add more hands to the job and make some extra earning on a piece-rate wage basis;  only 1.3 per cent of the child labourers belong to the Sikh families. Gender distribution of the child labour reveals that nearly a quarter of them are female; as many as 38 per cent of the child labourers never join school, and of those who do join, more than four-fifths, do not have even five years of schooling.

Aims at generating reliable information on the sources of health care finance in the Union Territory of Chandigarh; objectives of the Study are to estimate the extent and share of each source of health care funding; and to assess the burden of out-of-pocket expenses on health care on the households; the finds that the government’s share in financing health care in the Union Territory of Chandigarh is quite large (50 per cent), as compared to the pattern in the rest of India. In spite of such a large share of the public sector in health care spending, the burden of out-of-pocket spending on the households is still quite heavy, particularly, in the case of the lower income groups.

Wheat and paddy rotation is the optimal crop specialization for Punjab agriculture. No other feasible alternative seems to exist; Punjab should stick to wheat and paddy cultivation, and further improve its competitive advantage in these two crops; falling water table problem should be tackled through legislation and by consolidating the canal-tube well and flood drain network to make them symbiotic and sustainable.

Dairy farming and milk production is alternatives for diversification of Punjab agriculture; milk production and dairying contributes about 32 percent of the total value of the agricultural output in the state; objective of the Study is to collect and analyse information and data on all the relevant economic aspects of the commercial dairy farming in the State, to build an authentic picture of their current economic status, problems, and to devise a strategy for tackling these problems for the further expansion of the dairy sector in the State; a viable and effective policy package and plan will be developed for the development of the dairy farming.

Assessment was made from amongst the urban, rural and slum population of Chandigarh; samples were drawn of the commercial sex workers (CSW), men who have sex with men (MSM), injecting drug users (IDU),  truckers, rickshaw pullers, other migrants, street children,  school/college students, and general population from all the geographical locations of the Union Territory; awareness still did not reflect much in the community’s behaviour; to combat HIV/AIDS; a multi-pronged strategy should be adopted, such as, comprehensive and elaborate package of information and education on HIV/AIDS; rational approach of communication; suggests sustainable behaviour change through supportive social environment, and rehabilitation of those who adopt unsafe practices under some compulsion.

Examines the implications of trade liberalisation and health sector reforms on the structure of health services, health rights, and access to medicines; examines how the pharmaceutical companies, nationally and internationally, have responded to the WTO; to understand the public funding of health across different States in India, in relation to the changing nature of centre-state relations, and to understand how utilisation of health services is related with the public provisioning of the same;  whether the Canadian experience might provide models that could be adapted to meet the needs of the Indian population?

Explore the nature, extent and causes of the suicides in the rural Punjab, and suggest a plan of action for combating the problem; survey which was conducted in 24 villages of the State reveals 40% of the suicide victims were from non-farming occupations, such as, business, service or labour and 20% of the total victims were alcoholics and 48% of them were daily drinkers; reveals that 70 percent of the total suicides were reported from six districts of the State, namely, Sangrur, Mansa, Faridkot, Bathinda, Ferozepur and Gurdaspur; possible causes of the suicides stated by the family members were indebtedness, family disputes, alcohol / drug abuse, and mental tension.

Pace of urbanization, change in life style of urban population, high income elasticity of demand for residential space, unplanned development of urban areas, and speculation in real estate due to fast rise in land prices on urban fringe resulted in fast growth of demand for land for non-agricultural uses.; urgent need for legislative and administrative measures to prevent the diversion of farm land into non-agricultural uses; aims to devise measures, which are politically acceptable and easy to implement, to curb this diversion of agricultural land.

Evaluate the impact of agricultural mechanization under the MMM scheme with the emphasis on the implements delivered to the eligible farmers, the quality of implements delivered to find out the operational difficulties experienced by the beneficiary farmers; assess the impact of these implements on the productivity, cost of production, labour use, and timely completion of the operations; includes various implements provided as  subsidy to the farmers during the five year period from 2001-02 to 2005-06.

Evaluate the Flood Prone River (FPR) Ghaggar Scheme in Haryana in term of output and outcome of the investments made under the scheme; the cost effectiveness of the financial and physical investments made under the scheme, and to recommend processes, procedures and practices which the scheme may incorporate in future.

To maintain food self-sufficiency, wheat and rice production in the Punjab-Haryana region has not only to be sustained at the present high level, but also to be expanded further; wheat and rice production in the region has to be paid much greater attention; profitability of wheat and rice production in the region has been eroding since the beginning of the current decade due to the stagnation of the yield rates, rising cost of farm inputs, and slow growth of the minimum support prices of wheat and paddy.

Almost every farmer, routinely and regularly, borrows a large amount to carry out the farm operations; the structure and functioning of the farm credit system in the State is afflicted with a number of serious problems; fast growth of farm debt and the increase in debt related farmers’ suicides. No institutional mechanism for providing relief to the debt trapped farmers has come up; the high share of the commission agents in the farm credit continues, with its attendant high interest rates and exploitative mechanisms; the share of the cooperative credit institutions in the farm credit has declined despite the best efforts of the government to make cooperative credit cheaper and more farmer friendly; an examination of all these issues and problems is needed for formulating a suitable and functional policy to tackle the problems plaguing it; evolve a workable policy for creating a sustainable and effective institutional farm credit system in the State.

Almost every farmer routinely and regularly borrows a large amount to carry out the farm operations; the structure and functioning of farm credit system in the state is afflicted with a number of serious problems. The cooperative credit institutions being the kingpin of rural credit, this decline in their share in farm credit is a cause of serious concern and needs to be reversed at the earliest; examination of all these issues and problems has been undertaken for a correct understanding of the present farm credit situation in the state; a workable policy for creating a sustainable and effective institutional farm credit system in the state has been framed.       

Punjab Nirman Programme was launched by Punjab Government in the year 2005-06 and was continued in 2006-07; objective of this programme was to make a special and concerted effort to improve the living conditions of the people in urban and rural areas by creating the needed infrastructure works; focus was to provide funds to create and complete sanitation and drinking water projects, housing for houseless, street lighting and repair of community centers etc.; to assess the impact of this programme and to evaluate it.

Volume of farm credit has grown manifold; almost every farm is using credit money to finance farm operation and capital investment on the farm; in the mid-sixties commercial banks had a negligible share in the farm credit market and co-operative institutions were the only major public agency advancing farm loans; now the commercial banks have emerged as a major institutional agency in the farm credit market, surpassing even the co-operative credit institutions. To regain and further expand the share of co-operative institutions in farm credit.

Punjab Nirmaan Programme was launched by Punjab Government; objective of this programme was to make a special and concerted effort to improve the living conditions of the people in the urban and rural areas.; to assess the impact of this programme, and to evaluate the same; mapping showed not only the factual situation of these aspects regarding the allocation and utilisation trends, but also contained a detailed analysis and assessment of the allocation done in terms of any biases for particular areas and the schemes, weaknesses in terms of detailed allocation and release of funds and, the actual utilisation of funds; evaluation of Punjab Nirman Programme was done partly on the basis of secondary data and information, and partly on the basis of the field survey of 25 villages and 10 towns of the State and the selected districts were Amritsar (Bari Doab region), Jalandhar (Bist Doab region), Hoshiarpur (foot hills region), Bathinda (Eastern Malwa region), and Ferozepur (Western Malwa region); showed that the district-wise allocation of funds was not strictly laid down according to the criterion about the share of funds to be allocated as per the district population in the State; most of the districts of Malwa region got excess allocation over and above their population share in the State.

Shagun scheme is implemented to aids SC families with the sum of Rs. 15000/- at the time of the daughter’s marriage; scheme covers daughters above 18 years of age belonging to Christians and widows of any caste and is admissible to two daughters in the family; evaluation Study aims to capture the detailed mapping, allocation and distribution of funds along with an assessment of the allotment done in terms of any biases for particular areas, and in the release of funds.

HIV/AIDS pandemic is a tough disease to combat mainly because it has no known cure with prevention being the only way to delay the ultimate; IEC campaigns that have been launched include: Red Ribbon Project in colleges/ schools (Red Ribbon Clubs); awareness workshops organized by the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS); an impact evaluation study will be conducted which will assess the impact of Red Ribbon Clubs on the student population and their role in spreading the message; to evaluate the impact of the workshops organized by NYKS, and the impact of the media messages (Doordarshan and All India Radio Spots) on the general population.

Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is a comprehensive programme launched in the year 1986 to improve the quality of lives of the rural people and providing privacy and dignity to women; purpose of this evaluation study is to assess whether the objective underlined in the scheme are being met or not.

Exhaustive appraisal was being undertaken in the four border districts of Punjab, i.e., Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran and Ferozepur with an idea of exploring the dynamics associated with the phenomenon of substance abuse and dependence, and to suggest policy changes; highlighted that substance abuse is more prevalent among the younger population who are employed and relatively less educated. Traditional drugs, such as, Bhukki and Post are more commonly used among the agricultural and labour class, whereas the synthetic drugs are more prevalent among the students. Pharmaceuticals are fast replacing traditional drugs as the most consumed drugs due to their easy availability and low costs.

Objective of the study was to analyse the role of the Cooperative Credit Institutions in the farm credit of the State, and to find out the reasons for the relatively slower growth of the cooperative credit vis-a-vis Commercial Bank credit in the recent years; purpose was to arrive at some implementable policy recommendations that can revamp and rejuvenate the cooperative credit set-up in the State to enable it to play its due role in the supply of credit to the Punjab farmers. To carry out the objectives of the Study, both secondary data and primary field survey data have been used. The time series data on various aspects of the Cooperative and Commercial Bank credit to the farmers were gathered from various issues of the Statistical Abstract of Punjab. The time period selected for the analysis is 1981-82 to 2008-09. Study has also shown that many of the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Land Development Banks, rural and semi-urban branches of the Central Cooperative Banks, and Primary Agricultural Credit Societies are at a loss; Land Development Banks also performed poorly in recovering the outstanding loans; suggested the merger of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Land Development Banks with the Central Cooperative Banks, and merger or even closure of the loss-making societies and the rural and semi-urban branches of the Central Cooperative Banks; proposed that long-term lending to agriculture should be done by the Central Cooperative Banks.

Self-sufficiency in food production is the only lasting solution of food security for India’s growing population. Over the last four decades India’s food self-sufficiency has been ensured by the surplus grain production in Punjab-Haryana region. This dependence will continue in the coming decades, because the probability of a big spurt in food production in the rest of India is rather low. The inhibiting role of structural constraints in the rest of India seems to be responsible for the stagnation of wheat and rice yields at a rather low level. The high productivity surplus grain production in Punjab-Haryana region is sustainable provided a favourable price regime is maintained to ensure the continuous profitability of the production of these two grains.

Food security of the country has been virtually dependent on surplus food grain production in Punjab since the early 1970s; this dependence will continue in the next few decades as well; the rest of India continues to be deficit in food grain production even after four decades of Green Revolution. The sustainable expansion of food grain production in Punjab, therefore, is imperative not only to protect Punjab farmers’ income and standard of living, but also to ensure the food security of the Indian masses in the coming decades. Objective of Study is to critically examine the current state of food grain production in Punjab, and to devise a practical strategy for ensuring sustainable expansion of food grain production in the State in the coming years; an attempt towards analysing the current problems and constraints in the expansion of food grain production in the State and to formulate a practical strategy to ensure a sustainable growth of food grain production in Punjab in the coming years.

Critically evaluates the existing de-addiction centres and the preventive programmes in terms of physical infrastructure, efficiency in functioning and outcome, and the impact of the conducted activities, assessing  the attitude and prejudices of the addicts, community and support structures associated with the running of the centres, and preparing an action plan delineating the steps to be put in place for preventive and curative mechanism, rehabilitation and reintegration of the addicts into the community; examined and evaluated the role, functions, staff members, infrastructural facilities available at the sampled de-addiction centers, and the perceptions and characteristics of the drug victims and their family members.

Detailed case study of the organizational development interventions in Trident Limited from 2003-2011; assesses whether a major organization development journey impacts the key financial and growth parameters of a company and has any contribution in increasing the satisfaction level of the employees over time; recommends that Trident has an impactful culture and it can further leverage on the strengths and capabilities of its members by introducing focused interventions in areas where engagement levels are either low or have an extended scope of improvement; proposes further research that can be conducted in this area by measuring the engagement levels of member vis-à-vis each category of interventions.

SuvidhaCentres are to be linked with an IT platform where the citizens would have access to the basic police services over the Internet with mission statement of the project is ‘Working together for making our society crime free and humane.’; outlays the Context of Community Policing in India by presenting the challenges, constraints and opportunities available to build a community-police partnership; provides a situational analysis of the initiatives by stating what community policing is, and what it is not; outlines the institutionalization of community policing and the correct steps and characteristics of the desired institution; addresses ways in which the community partnership can be incorporated within the administrative structure and functions since the operationalisation of this partnership;  tasks and role of each CPRC, CPSC and PSOC – starting from the state level down to the sub-divisional level, is laid out in the guide. The guide also provides route maps for monitoring, and the impact strategy for the police institution to compare inputs, outputs and outcomes of this project.

Capture the baseline survey of the knowledge, attitude, behavior, and practices of the voters, and to prepare a communication package; to assess the gaps in Knowledge, Attitude, Behavior, Practice (KAPB) amongst the voters. Efficacy of voter awareness campaigns conducted for the revision of the electoral rolls, media effects of similar campaigns during 2012 Elections to the Legislative Assembly of Punjab. The inferences of the report touch upon the various reasons of non-voting under normal conditions, and recommended remedies to reduce non-voters such as, updated Voter Lists, Improved facilities at the Polling Booths, as well as the expected electoral reforms like, the Right to Reject and Recall, etc. Report formulates a future strategy to increase awareness of the Election Commission of India as a brand name distinct from the political parties, especially, amongst the rural and illiterate population.

Fifth round of PSVW was held by Altus Global Alliance from 31st October to 6th November, 2011 across 20 countries. In this project, 4,755 citizens visited 1,044 police stations expressing their views regarding the performance of the police stations in serving and providing security to their community; report documents exemplary practices as adjudged by the citizens who depend on police services while rating the quality of services that are available in the police stations who are supposed to serve them.

Growth rate of Gujarat is higher than all India level and other North-Western States in all the decades except 1980-90, because of the negative growth of the agriculture sector during 1980s. Agriculture sector has also grown at an impressive rate of 7.6% per annum; service sector is growing at a higher rate except for Haryana in the 80s decade; registered manufacturing has grown at higher rate compared to the unregistered manufacturing in all the States with a few exceptions for some years. Within the service sector, trade, hotels and restaurants, and transport, storage and communication, and banking and insurance have grown at higher rate in comparison with all the other States.

Attempt to explain the pattern of investment in the state of Gujarat and to demystify the fact as to why are there so many investment activities in the State? Gujarat is ranked at the third position behind Odisha and Chhattisgarh; in implementation of the investment projects, Gujarat is ahead of others; state has been the destination for more than one fourth of the total private investment made in India; more than 26 percent of the country’s investment goes to Gujarat. The sectors that attract most of the investment in Gujarat are electricity and manufacturing; adherence to quality standards, pro-active governance, and friendly and simplified procedures to facilitate the investment projects by dispensing with numerous bureaucratic hurdles; Gujarat has been successful in creating world class industrial infrastructure, which seems to be a major reason behind its success;  certain other aspects like strong industrial base, geographical location as contracted with unfavorable investment climate in several other States, seem to be influencing the investment decisions as well.

Gujarat power sector is the fastest growing with annual growth rate of 12.87 per cent in India compared to very low growth rates in other States. For the same period, the growth of the installed capacity of private sector in Gujarat is 33.24 % which is the highest among the Indian States. Growth of the installed capacity in the post power sector reform period in Gujarat, i.e., after 2005, has been led by the private sector. In 2001-02, the share of the private sector in the installed capacity at 36.15 per cent was quite high as compared to other States; Gujarat leads with 54.75 per cent of the total installed capacity. Share of hydro power has decreased from 7.49 per cent in 2001-02 to 5.89 per cent in 2010-11 which is totally State owned power in Gujarat; of thermal power which was 90.22 per cent in 2001-02 the same has come down to 78.85 per cent in 2010-11; a shift in the share of the thermal and hydel power in the total installed capacity to the renewable energy sources, the share of which increased to 15.03 per cent for Gujarat in 2010-11 from 2.05 per cent in 2001-02;  the whole share of renewable energy source is coming from the private sector only.

Distributive value of the industrial process is at its minimum as employment and wage shares of the manufacturing industry have been dismally low. This has been witnessed through very low employment elasticity of the output, and lowest shares of wages in GVA in India, and rising trends of casualization of the workforce; State has also concentrated more and more in its sectoral composition with high concentrations of the refined petrochemicals and chemical industry  also high regional concentrations in Jamnagar, Vadodara and Surat; Jamnagar has 5 units of factories of refined petroleum that constitutes more than 95 percent of the GVA and output for the district which accounts for 25 percent of Gujarat’s total manufacturing output. Selective development is likely to weaken the primary sector and adversely affect the agriculture-industry linkages, besides widening the regional disparities in growth and force more of its population into uncertainty and poverty. Recent reforms particularly, with respect to land, can have adverse effects on the poorer sections of the population; affect the poor adversely since they will not get enough employment.

Answer the questions to how much has that growth or development trajectory of Gujarat been socially inclusive. Has its high growth rate ‘trickled down’ to all the sections of the people? Has it resulted in better quality of life for the larger section of the population, or for the socio-economically weaker sections of the ‘lower castes’, women and religious minorities? Big mismatch between Gujarat’s phenomenal growth story and its performance in the key social sector, such as, education; on basic educational outcomes and participation parameters, Gujarat has slipped from its previous position, in comparison with other States of India; strong evidence of the deep-rooted social disparity, in terms of gender, caste and religion, in this sector in comparison with the rest of the country; comparison with similar economically performing States, Gujarat’s performance is worse; poor access to the schools, particularly in the rural areas, and caste excesses.  Reveals that Gujarat’s economic growth has not translated itself into the sector gains; rather, such an era of high economic growth is juxtaposed with the worsening of the social sector outcomes compared to the other States; issues need to be addressed at the earliest.

Looks at the progress in the health achievement in the state of Gujarat; analyses the role of the State in the provision of health care; also looks at the health outcomes at the State level; gives special focus on the distribution of the health outcomes across different social groups and how it fares compared to other States. Findings clearly show that progress in the health outcomes has not been satisfactory as the State was found lacking in numerous aspects; social gaps in the health outcomes are also quite significant; analysis of the IMR, under 5 mortality (U5MR) and children nutrition status show a higher social gaps persisting in the State as compared to national average, and it shows an increasing trend over time between 1999-2000 and 2005-06. Health expenditure of the State also shows the lack of commitment of the government to improve the health status of the citizens; health expenditure of the State is lower than the average for all the States between 1990 to 2010; much lower than other developed States such as, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra

High growth is being accompanied by dismal growth in employment for the State economy as a whole; key sectors in terms of employment like, agriculture and manufacturing, witnessed negative growth rate in the latter half of the decade; growth in employment has largely come from the construction and service sectors; casual and self-employment were the main drivers of the growth; socially marginalized groups like, STs and Religious minorities, are yet to benefit from the fruits of higher growth of the State.

Workshops discusses on themes, such as, Environment Enrichment and Role of N.S.S. volunteers, Child abuse and Role of Teachers, Gender Justice and Women Development, Adolescent Reproductive Health, Child Survival and Safe Motherhood, HIV/ AIDS: Awareness Programme. In order to give first-hand knowledge, information, and experience, and to make them aware about different problems, programme officers were taken on a visit of Chandigarh, and around BapuDham Colony, slums in the city and discussed reproductive health problems; trainees were educated about child survival and safe motherhood; also visited the watershed management and dry land project at CCS, H.A.U., Hisser.

Efforts were made to institutionalize community policing activities under the banner of Community Police programme (Saanjh). These CPC’s are aimed at providing easy and dignified access of the public to the police services, improving community-police relations, bringing transparency in service and dealings, create forum to address the rights of all the citizens and sections of the community, and building the confidence of the people in crime management and grievance redressal. This novel initiative of community-policing received widespread appreciation from the civil society with feedback from the media about some problems and issues which have cropped up; this evaluation will help in identifying all the issues and suggest ways to tackle the same pragmatically and meticulously to give this new programme a smooth run. Objectives of the study are to identify different issues pertaining to human resources, infrastructure, departmental, and of financial nature, to know the understanding level of the staff about SAANJH programme, and their professional capacities and commitment to handle these centres; operationalized in 24 Police Districts headed by SSPs and 3 Cities headed by IGPs, and would be completed in six months.

Employment of human labor in the agriculture sector is declining fast in Punjab due to increasing mechanization of farm operations; making the problem of unemployment in rural Punjab more serious and complex. The farm sector is suffering from congestion, failing to absorb newer applicants as well as shedding older employees. The Urban-Industrial sector of the state is not growing at a sufficiently fast rate and is not able to generate jobs suitable for the employment of rural youth. The scope for this growing number of un-employed to be absorbed and hired in the Urban Industrial sector is bleak. The jobs that are available are low wage, low status and menial type which the rural youth are not willing to take up; to assess the development of such non-agricultural enterprise by accumulating and analyzing ground level information to identify the ones that have a good scope of further developing the rural areas of the state. Objectives: to find out the current state of development of rural non-agricultural enterprise in Punjab; to document the socio-economic profile of owner-operators of these enterprises; to estimate the employment generated and capital investment in these enterprises; to assess the labor productivity in these enterprises and the income earned by their operators; to document the marketing patterns, sources of finance and raw materials used in these enterprises; to identify rural non-agricultural enterprises that has a good scope of further development; to suggest policy measures for speeding up the growth in these enterprises; completed a census survey of all the non-agricultural enterprises operating in 19 randomly selected villages from various agro-climatic zones of the state. This was carried out in November-December, 2012.  Found an estimated number of 6.28 lakh non-agricultural enterprises employing about 10.58 lakh workers already operating in rural Punjab; their number and employment capacity needs to be enhanced further in view of the declining trend in labor scope in agriculture, fast growing young population in rural areas and slow growth of Urba-Industrial sector employment in the state.  Some enterprises which are growing fast and have the most potential are: Keryanashops( grocery shops), embroidery, tailoring shops, beauty parlors, barber shops, tea stalls, dhabas , bakery, dairy products, green fodder/busa stalls, private veterinary service etc; to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the non-agricultural rural enterprises and made detailed recommendations to achieve the said objectives.

Objective of the study was to gather the perceptions, attitudes and communication needs of various stakeholders especially the affected/unaffected local populations and the project managements/officials concerned directly or indirectly with the hydro power development in order to; assess the state of stakeholder participation, engagement and project governance; assessment was then used to make recommendations for appropriate processes, systems, institutions and messages to improve the quality and output of engagement/interaction by the government with the stakeholders; goal was to help the hydro development programme gather wide stakeholder support; examined the role and relevance of national and state policies regarding the said issue. The field survey covered 8 projects and 15 affected villages in the two river basins of Satluj and Chenab. A total of 226 respondents directly or indirectly affected project activities (the PAF/NPAF) were interviewed through structured schedules. 90 respondents selected from; government officials, project managements, PRI representatives, local population/media were also interviewed (semi structured schedules). Apart from these, 213 respondents from selected categories of power consumers – industry/commercial/domestic – in the districts of Kangra, Solan, Chamba, Kinnaur and Shimla were also interviewed.

Aims to find out the current state of the rural non-agricultural enterprises in Punjab; development of rural non-agricultural enterprises can be a plausible solution to the growing unemployment of rural youth; generate the ground level information on state of rural non-agricultural enterprises to identify the ones with the potential of further development in the rural areas of state; proposes systematic and vigorous government intervention to speed the growth of such enterprises.

Objective: capture a pattern of drinking and types of drinkers in Haryana. Findings: in rupees’ term, it is highest in Punjab (Rs. 29.94) and in Haryana (Rs. 10.84.); per thousand households’ incidence of the drinkers’ households is 102 in Haryana; highest number of beer drinkers are in Andhra Pradesh; during 2013-14, the highest per capita consumption of country liquor in the bottles remained highest in Faridabad and Kaithal; lowest per capita consumption of the country liquor in the bottles remained in Mewat; highest number of the vends are in district Gurgaon (9.06%) and (7.89%) in Faridabad. Majority of the drinkers fall in the age category of 35-50 years; their numbers are 41.7% in rural and 51.65% in urban areas; caste wise break up shows 64.89% drinkers are from the OBCs in the rural areas and in general castes their numbers was 54.94% in urban areas; majority of the drinkers are farmers (41.26%) followed by self-employed (22.55%); among the drinkers, a majority is of the regular and occasional drinkers; maximum number of surveyed drinkers (71.32%) consume country liquor. Policy Implications: stabilisation of price of liquor by checking the inter-district smuggling of liquor; smuggling of liquor should be checked in villages; approved vend should sale only approved liquor which has approved; time of vends should be fixed around 10pm in cities; sale of liquor to the school children should be banned.

Examines the status of Human Development and Poverty among the SCs and Non-SCs in Punjab over the last three decades. Objectives: to examine the policies implemented for the development of the SCs in the State; discuss the population size and changes, sex ratio, urbanization and migration across social groups; map the changes in the level of poverty and malnutrition in the State; evaluate the access to assets among the SCs as compared to the Non-SCs in terms of agricultural land and private business; examine how occupational patterns across social groups differ; explore issues related to education, housing condition and health status among the SCs; examine the issue of reservation in political and employment positions; and gauge reasons and extent of the atrocities against the Dalits. Findings: during 1981 to 2011, the population growth of the SCs is relatively higher than that of the Non-SCs; of the SCs, a total of about 60 per cent follow the Sikh religion and about 40 per cent follow the Hindu religion; sex ratio among SCs is relatively higher than the Non-SCs at 910 as compared to 888, respectively in 2011; inter-state migration is lowest among SCs and highest among STs; among male SCs, the international migration is highest to 6.8 per cent; rate of increase in the per capita income is lowest among SCs to 1.77 per cent per annum; SC among economic groups are the poorest; share of undernourished children is substantially high among SCs; child mortality rate for SCs has declined to from 78 per cent to 62 per cent; literacy rate at State level was 76 per cent, 71 per cent in rural and 83 per cent in urban areas; SC have a higher mortality rate (under-five), low BMI and incidence of the stunted children; growth pattern has been less pro-poor for SCs when compared to the rest; negligible access to agricultural land ownership to SCs.

Objectives: to compare the variations in the retail prices in different locales; the situation of price rise, productivity and consumption of various food items of India and Punjab was also researched. Findings: wholesale price index (WPI) shows a tremendous rise in the prices of vegetables from the base year 2004-05 to June, 2014; WPI of condiment and spices sharply increased; (CPI) of the working classes adversely hit the agricultural workers; production of the highly inflated food items like pulses, oilseeds, spices, vegetables and fruits is not significant in proportion to the consumption; growers of vegetables accept it is not profitable to grow vegetables; marketing system, due to involvement of arhtiyas (commission/handling agents), is quiet complex and not favourable to the farmers; government should identify space within States to grow vegetables, fruits and pulses, etc.; landless agricultural labourers should be trained to grow vegetables and fruits and given small plots out of village common land; in rural areas, the cooperative provision stores should be strengthened; in urban areas, the shopping malls should be started which will fulfil the demand of upper strata of society; in the local mandis, first preference will be given to the local producers of the area; hoarding of essential products may be checked by liberal imports of the agro products, exports should be curtailed of inflated food items; billing of essential food items should be mandatory, creates revenues and safeguards the interests of consumers.

Looks into the role played by the implementing agencies in the execution of welfare policies, plans and schemes for the SCs and BCs in Haryana, Objectives: examines various government schemes, policies and programmes initiated by the Government of India and the State Government for the development of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Backward Castes (BCs) in Haryana; also looks into the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) guidelines issued by the Planning Commission of India in 2006 and 2013; investigates sector-wise allocation of funds and expenditure in the State Government’s Annual Budgets for the welfare of SCs in Haryana’ comprises of  statistical analyses of schemes.

Social and economic inequalities between the SCs and other social groups still persist and is one of the major issues occupying the centre stage of the development debate. Objectives: to analyse the changes in the economic and social situation of the SCs in Haryana in comparison to the OBCs and other (non-SC/ST); the factors required to be taken care of for bringing about positive changes, and also to take cognizance of those factors that are causing continuing disparities between the SCs and the ‘rest’; evaluate the working of different government schemes, their effectiveness and impact including, the Scheduled Castes Sub Plan (SCSP); make recommendations for modifying the pre-existing policies and suggest new policies and schemes. Findings: large number of the SC households are still denied access to the basic amenities especially in the rural areas.  Situation analysis across three surveyed districts reveals that there are a large number of SC households that are still denied access to agriculture/allied activities; lack of productive assets such as, agricultural land, financial capital, institutional credit etc. among the SCs have increased their vulnerability and dependence upon others; more than 50 per cent – both urban and rural area – reported that they were victimized for asserting political rights and for favouring certain political party. Widespread corruption reported in the execution of development programmes. Analysis of NCRB data on the rise in crime against the dalits between 2003 and 2013 reveals that there had been an appalling increase in the dalits’ murder incidents, women’s rape, kidnapping and abduction. 65.5 per cent of the surveyed households/respondents in rural area reported that they faced caste based violence for ‘raising voice against low wages; 64.5 per cent said that they were victimized for ‘raising voice against the atrocities committed on the dalits by the upper-castes’; 61.2 per cent stated that they face violence for ‘raising voice against the violence committed by the upper-castes against the dalit women’;  reporting of ‘atrocities,’ on dalits to the police is also futile and often leads to suppression of their voices.

Estimated number of the informal sector workers in 2004-05 was 394.90 million in India contributing 86 per cent of the total workers. The growth rate of the urban informal sector is higher than the formal sector workers.Objective: to review the relevant studies on the Informal sector; to ascertain the socio-economic profile of the roadside Barbers in Chandigarh; to assess the working conditions and earnings of the roadside Barbers; to discuss the age-earning relationship; to discuss the relationship of earnings in different seasons.Findings:  66.66 per cent barbers fall in the age category of 20-40 years and the average age in this category is 31 years; 51.12 per cent of barbers belong to the backward classes and 42.22 per cent  belongs to the general category, and 1.2 per cent were from the Scheduled Castes; 51.12 per cent are MUSLIMS and 46.66 per cent belongs to the HINDU religion; 66.66 per cent of the sample barbers are literate and remaining 33.34 per cent are illiterate; 86.66 per cent are married and their average family size is 5 and 13.34 per cent of the sample barbers are unmarried and their average family size is 6; 60 per cent live in rented accommodation and only 26.66 per cent has their own houses; 93.34 per cent of the sample barbers migrated to Chandigarh from others States and only 6.66 per cent of the sample barbers belong to Chandigarh itself; 98 per cent barbers did not face any objection from the Municipal Corporation to operafrom their working location; 21 per cent barbers belonged to the category who earned between Rs. 200 – 300 per day followed by the 14 sample Barbers who earned less than Rs. 300 – 400 per day. Minimum age in the sample is 16 years and, maximum age of a barber is 60 years; maximum earning of Rs. 550 is in the summer season with 15 working hours; sixty per cent of the sample barbers spend less than Rs. 1000 per month on purchase of raw material.

Washer men (Dhobi) is a specific community classified as “Kanaujiya” under the Scheduled Caste (S.C.) category. Occupation of Washer men is hereditary, who specialise in ironing clothes. They are spread all over the city. Objectives: to study the socio- economic profile of Washer men in different parts of the city; domicile of the Washer men operating in different parts of the city; age-earning relationship; amount charged by them for offering different services; earning and working conditions under which they operate. Findings 57.78% of washer men fall in the age category of 30-50 years; they belong to SC category and are Hindus; all are members of Dhobi Welfare Association; 6o% are literate are migrants from UP; married with average family size of 5 members; live in rented houses; learn the profession from their family members or relatives or friends; monthly expenditure on raw materials varies from Rs 2000-4000/- with daily earnings is Rs 100 per day; variations in earnings on the basis of seasons.

Focussed on part-time female domestic maids in Chandigarh and to get an idea about the wages and working conditions of the female domestic maids. Objective: to review the relevant studies on the female domestic maids; to highlight the socio‐economic profile of the female domestic maids; to get information relating to the wages of the domestic maids; to study the relationship of the monthly wage with age, time spent, experience and size of the employer’s house etc.; to analysis the working conditions of the domestic maids. Findings:  average age of female domestic maids in our sample is about 37 years. (76%) is from the Scheduled Castes and they belong to RAVIDASIA or RAMDASIA caste; 92% of the sample maids belong to the Hindu religion; out of the sample maid servants, 82% were married and 18% unmarried; found 73% of the domestic maids are illiterate and the remaining 27% claimed to be able to read Hindi; maximum number of the female domestic maids have migrated from UP and Bihar. More than 90% of them migrated from the rural areas; 37% of the domestic maids have their government approved own pucca houses provided by the Chandigarh administration; 58% of the husbands of sample domestic maids can only read and write while 42% are completely illiterate; husbands of the sampled domestic maids work as hawkers, private security guards, and, drivers, etc., and only 29% are engaged in self-employment and run small shops on the roadside. Average size of the sample domestic maid’s family is 5, out of which the working members are 3; about 80% of the domestic maids’ families have basic facilities like toilet and electricity in their houses; average wage is Rs 3758 pm; works for 8-9 hours on average per day.

Growth rate per se may not be a valid indicator to measure the well-being of the people, it is not only lethargic, but dangerous. GDP mainly measures market production. However, expressed in money units – and, as such, it is useful. It has often been treated as if it were a measure of economic well-being’. Objective is to ascertain whether the State of Punjab needs a paradigm shift in economic development. Findings: GDP and Fiscal Deficit Misnomer not helpful in making an assessment of the current well-being and sustainability aspects of the growth trajectory and entails the wrong policy decisions; citizen well-being indicators, contrary to the popular perception in the State, Punjab’s relative position as compared to other States is rather good; Regional Context; the international border the reorganisation of Punjab with Chandigarh being a Union Territory, put the State into a seriously disadvantageous position. Without a capital city, Punjab lost space that could have acted as the driver of growth, capital cities act as the major source of revenue generation; Punjab’s paradoxes of development models unable to carve out its own path in a neoliberal globalised economy. Lack of a clear Agricultural policy. Punjab has suffered on account of the advocates of diversification of crops since 1986. Punjab’s agriculture is highly developed, but without any organic linkages with the industry and service sectors. Punjab economy could not build any robust forward and backward linkages between the different sectors of economy. Agriculture has slowed down while service sector contribution increased from 45% in 1990s to 78% in 2010s. Gap between economic gains and non-economic outcomes need to be addressed, instead of improving quality education, the policy planners have done only the fiscal fix; around 30 per cent of the schools have teachers who do not have even the higher secondary certificate. With regard to the State and society in general, there is a need to capture the outcome of the intense explorations of the Scheduled Castes. In this sense, they remain ‘deficient citizens’. In other words, ‘only within the confines of a community can be familiar list of the human rights – life, liberty, prosperity, pursuit of happiness, and so forth – be realised’; State of Punjab has to reinvent itself to ensure the rights of the poor and underprivileged instead of promoting metropolitan regimes, facilitate foreign direct investment, withdraw subsidies and encourage privatisation in social development. Imperative is to address issues relating to access quality, systems of delivery; to raise legitimate questions like: How far the public service-delivery mechanism is able to provide safety, security and equitable access? For whom are the public service delivery mechanisms functional? how far governance is able to politically engage its citizens?

Focuses on how the States of India performed? A comprehensive comparison of the present standard of living of people in the major States of India is made on the basis of the latest available information. Objective is to ascertain a comparison of the standard of living of the people across the States by directly comparing the bundle of goods and services consumed/used by them. Findings: comparison of per capita state domestic product fails to give a correct picture of the inter-state variations in the standard of living of the people; a better procedure is to compare the per capita amount of goods and services consumed/used by the people; the people in Punjab, Kerala, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh enjoy higher standard of living; and the people in Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh subsist at the lowest standard of living.

Focuses on challenges faced in the implementation of Enterprises Promotion Policy 2015 such as Ease of Doing Business & Single Window System and providing recommendations; concentrated on estimating wide regional/district level disparities & recommendations for the same; aims at providing some sector-specific recommendations.   Findings: Results showed existence of wide disparities among districts with Gini Coefficient of 0.35 using PCI district-wise data.  Gurugram with PCI 4.4 times of the average for the entire state ranks first; Panipat district ranks second but with a PCI 1.7 times the state average; using district wise data reveals high inequalities in registered manufacturing and services sectors, with Gini coefficient for registered manufacturing being 0.79 and Services being 0.45. Ease of doing Business & Single window are important for development of industry and need to be improved; infrastructure is crucial for balanced regional development, investors do not wish to invest in B, C & D category backward blocks due to lack of developed infrastructure; growth remained confined to very few districts in the state.  Poor infrastructure is one of the main reasons for the dismissal performance of MSME in the state; to promote MSME and to exploit its employment generation potential suitable R & D effort is essential; government’s effort in this area is completely missing.

Objective to evaluate earnings and working conditions of vegetable vendors. Findings: majority of the vegetable vendors belong to SC and ST castes; were satisfied with their wholesalers and customers; vendors earned Rs. 276 per day and worked for almost 14 hours a day.

Objective: to get information regarding wages and to analyse the working conditions of hostel mess workers working in different educational institutions in Chandigarh.Findings: majority of hostel workers belong to general castes like Brahmins; verage wage of workers is Rs.6377 per month; arnings increase with the age of a mess worker; mess worker who falls under the maximum age category up to 60 years earns the maximum earning of Rs. 8200 per month; workers work for eight hours in a day and rarely work in shifts.

Objective was to get an overview of socio-economic condition of agricultural labourers in village Ghubhaya. Findings: showed that majority of the permanent farm servants and casual agriculture labourers belonged to scheduled castes; sample permanent farm servants earn Rs. 6980 per month, while  a permanent farm servant who can  drive a tractor on farms earns Rs. 7437 on an average in a month; MGNREGA, Atta Dal Scheme, Shagun Scheme, Toilet scheme under Swacch Bharat Abhyaan, are some major welfare schemes availed by the sample permanent farm servants and casual agriculture labourers’ average outstanding debt was found to be Rs. 4240 for permanent farm servants and Rs. 4800 for casual agriculture labourer.

Objective is to compare production and consumption of vegetables and fruits in Punjab and India; Findings: seventeen states which are major producer of vegetables, area of Punjab is just 178.1 thousand hectares whereas of West Bengal is 1330.9 thousand hectares; per capita per day consumption of fruits and vegetables is higher in Punjab as compared to India.

Studies the growth of agricultural laborers in Punjab from colonial period to post green revolution period. Findings: Prior to the British rule in Punjab, class of agricultural wage laborers did not exist; the proportion of agricultural laborers in agricultural population started increasing and reached 8.10 percent by 1901 and further increased to 14.40 percent by 1931; proportion of agricultural laborers in agriculture rose to 41.40 percent by 2011 due to Green Revolution

Focuses on the pattern of growth of small farmers in Punjab and India; compares the main characteristics of agriculture development of small farms and the level of institutional credit available to small farmers in Punjab and India; current status of income of small farmers from different sources is estimated. Findings: Number of small farmers in Punjab declined by 1.91 percent annually from 1970-71 to 2010-11, whereas the average size of land holding increased by 0.64 acres; reasons behind this trend may be fast urbanization in Punjab, accumulation of land by small farmers or due to declining profitability in agriculture, small farmers have left farming; total annual income for small farmers in Punjab was estimated to be Rs. 1.93 lakh, insufficient for survival of family of four members.

2017-18

Objectives: to map the growth and variations by farm size in types of rent tenancy during the Green Revolution period; to analyse the modernization of land lease market in Punjab; Findings: Nature of farm tenancy in Punjab has completely changed; traditional share tenancy has completely disappeared and the cash rent system land leasing has become universal over the green revolution period; complete change in the nature of farm tenancy is an integral part of the modernisation of agriculture in Punjab; Punjab agriculture now compares quite well with the agriculture of developed countries, and even better than those countries in terms of irrigation and yield stability because of mechanization etc. land lease laws of the state need complete revision; tenancy laws have become outdated and become impediment in the further development of productive forces and the structural change in agriculture. Change in land lease laws will enable inefficient/absentee owners to rent out their land without any fear of losing their land to tenants. Result in reallocation of farm land from inefficient to more efficient farmers and help in getting more output from the same cultivated area. New or modified land lease laws that ensure the ownership right of the landlords and induce them to enter into long-term written and registered lease arrangements with the tenants; also help the tenants in getting credit from the banks at low rate of interest on the basis of written registered land lease contracts.

Findings: In Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala, most of the rural dalits have poor living conditions, but about one-fourth of them have graduated to better living conditions characterised by pucca house, provision of piped drinking water and flush latrine, use of LPG for cooking; In rest of the states, situation is slightly better than eastern states, but nowhere near Punjab, Kerala etc. This regional pattern is replicated in consumption level of non-durable goods and ownership of durable consumer goods by rural dalits.

Findings: Gap between agricultural and non-agricultural incomes has continuously widened in India too;  now (2018) per capita income of the agricultural population has fallen to just one-tenth of the per capita income of the agricultural population; very wide in the fast growing states of Maharashtra and Gujarat; and quite wide even in Punjab and Haryana where green revolution has been very successful; consensus emerged among policy makers and economists developed nations on the impossibility of this gap being reduced if agricultural is left at the mercy of market forces and adopted parity  between agricultural and non-agricultural incomes as the primary goal of agricultural policy; and has maintained this parity over the last 70 years; policy programmes used for this purpose are minimum support prices, highly subsidised crop insurance and direct income parity the main goal of agricultural policy in India ; remunerative MSP and assured purchase of all surplus production should be ensured for all crops. 

Findings: Haryana Government is committed to give all business clearances related to labor, power, pollution, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), etc, in maximum 45 days.Haryana ranked at the 4th position as on March 17, 2018 in DIPP’s ranking on EoDB on the basis of 12 reform areas in India; these reform areas are revised each year and classified into action plans; these action plansare also updated each year based on the recommendations made by DIPP and then implemented by the states and then evaluated and ranked by DIPP. In 2017, ranking was done on the basis of 12 business reforms areas in 372 action plans implemented by the states. State Governments made it mandatory for the investors to apply online for obtaining various industrial clearances and approvals

Objectives are: to examine how participation in and location within the handloom industry, of diverse social and ethnic groups, provides the context or is perceived as a basis for collective grievances of the hill and valley people in Manipur; findings of this study will help design appropriate policies that address the concerns of the various stakeholders in the handloom industry in Manipur; and also establish the general significance of incorporating social and cultural dimensions in policies that are to do with economic life of the people. Findings: Heterogeneous production organization of the handlooms in the state and the sharp and distinct differences in its economic organization in the hill and valley regions of the state suggests that the market can permeate in different spaces differentially;  globalization and liberalization of the handloom sector has brought new challenges for the small and petty weavers and created conditions for uneven development of the handloom activities and new spatial division of labor in the state; transformation of the institutions, such as, markets, the enhancement of the skills and adoption of new technologies for generating surplus from production does not happen evenly between the hill and the valley regions of the state;  agglomeration of the handloom markets in some parts of the state, and differential commercialization of products between the hill and valley regions;  different communities use their art of weaving to present their distinct culture and tradition, visible by the kind of looms, fabrics and texture being used; marginalization of the petty weavers from the hill districts and concentration of the handloom activities in valley districts that are integrated with the commercial value chains, thus creating distinct conditions for the reinforcement of uneven and unequal spatial division of labor; master weavers are engaged in single (large or medium) plant or chain production structure with well-structured marketing chain having internal hierarchies in the division of labor; hilly districts have home based production system, without any internal hierarchies and division of labor in production and exchange process; little intra-market linkages of the products between the hills and the valley. provided the conditions for the growth of merchant (master) weaver’s and greater capital accumulation; access to market was the biggest constraint for the weavers from the hill districts; weavers in the valley were well aware and had better information about handloom schemes related to raw materials, training, welfare, marketing whereas hill weavers lack such awareness; beneficiaries of the handloom schemes were insignificant both in the valley and the hills. This was mainly true for the small and petty weavers. Success of cluster schemes in the two regions was of completely different order, found that yarn bank which is controlled by the committees either sells the yarn to the outsiders or to the master weavers of their choice. Creation of local market and availability of concessional credit is central for reducing the uneven development of handloom industry between valley and hilly districts of Manipur, but this can work only if the difference in the larger economic context of the hill and the valley was acknowledged.

Know the socio-economic status of rag pickers, their working conditions, earnings, housing conditions and relationship between waste collection and earnings of rag pickers in Ludhiana. 81 rag pickers were surveyed in the city of Ludhiana and case studies recorded; found that majority of rag pickers (about 67 %) belong to SC category; a majority are migrants from U.P. and Bihar, and around 90 percent are illiterate; live in unauthorised localities; started picking rags at the age of 4-5 years; income depends on the quantity of waste collected, with maximum earnings to be Rs. 283 a day; 50 kg of waste was being collected in a day and a rag picker aged between 50-60 years of age earned Rs. 10,750 per month.

Objectives are to examine the socio-economic profile of retail shop workers of Chandigarh; to analyse the earnings of these workers, their working conditions and relationship between type of shop and earnings; 50 retail shop workers were interviewed. Majority of the retail shop workers were in the age group 20-30 years, 72 percent were males and belonged to general caste category; majority of the workers were migrants from UP, Haryana, Punjab and Bihar; 92 percent have migrated from rural areas; 54 percent moved to the city without their family and an equal percentage live in rented accommodation mostly in rural areas; average monthly wages of the retail shop workers was Rs. 11660; majority of the workers reported that they don’t get paid holidays and all of them get weekly off, mostly on Sunday.

Examines the socio-economic profile of farmers in the village and their preference for various agencies for borrowing by the farmers; farmers were selected randomly from different land size holdings category. Findings: that majority of population is from general or backward castes, only 35 percent were literate, and 61 percent of the total male workers are cultivators; average land price per acre was Rs. 16.50 lakh; average cash rent was Rs. 10000 per acre. Majority of the cultivators used diesel operated tube wells, 11 percent of the households owned tractors and 1.6 percent owned thresher and 0.2 percent owned a combine; 36 sample farmers borrowed for short term credit for borrowing agricultural inputs, majority of them being medium farmers; 64 percent borrowed from Arthiyas and shopkeepers, average borrowing being about Rs. 0.33 lakh; for long term productive purpose, 50 percent of the farmers borrowed, borrowing was to the tune of Rs. 64 lakhs, and around 42 percent borrowed to purchase milch animals or construction of cattle sheds; on an average Rs. 2.67 lakh was borrowed by the borrowing sample farmers; 79 percent have not repaid the borrowed amount; 17 farmers borrowed for unproductive purposes; amount of Rs. 29.50 lakh is borrowed and a maximum amount of Rs. 4.25 lakh is borrowed by large farmers. For long term productive credit, formal credit agencies are preferred, mostly commercial banks, while for unproductive purpose, informal credit agencies are preferred.

Agriculture in Punjab became fully commercialized and it impacted the traditional agrarian relations. Debates shifted from gains in terms of income distribution among large, small farmers and landless laborers; on the efficiency of small and large farms in terms of productivity to, the number of small farmers has started declining; the small farming is not viable due to less profitability. In Punjab the number of small farmers, from 1970-71 to 2010-11, has declined by 1.91 percent annually; and average size of land holding has increased by 0.64 acres while in India the number of small farmers increased by 2.21 percent annually and operational average size of holding decreased by 0.21 acres; fast urbanization in Punjab, accumulation of land by small farmers or due to less profitability left the farming; gap in income of small and large farms in Punjab increased which at present is Rs. 4 lakh per annum; income of Rs. 1.90 lakh per year in case of small farms is not sufficient to survive for the family members of four.

Most of the urban middle class use the services of the maid servants for various domestic jobs; but no information is available on their income and earnings; focus of the study is to generate information on the earnings of part time domestic maids in Chandigarh. The earnings of domestic maids vary from person to person; analysis of monthly earnings of domestic maids reported in this paper is based on primary data of 100 domestic maids randomly selected from twenty different locations (Sectors) of the city; five respondents from each location were interviewed for this purpose. The maximum monthly earnings being Rs. 11000 per month and minimum being Rs. 600 per month; maximum- minimum earnings ratio stands at 18.33; factors behind this variation are: age, marital status, skill level in cooking and seize of employer’s family; relationship between age and earnings is inverted “U-shaped”, means after attaining a particular age the earnings start declining; migrant domestic maids and those having cooking skill earn more.

Project explores rural scheduled caste female income generation options in the production and sale of milk. Lack of skills and cultural factors restricting a work makes rearing Milch animals for supplementary house hold income an option for SC women. A situational analysis of rearing of Milch animals by rural dalit households is being undertaken. Also measures to promote this activity will be scoped.  A sample of 300 rural SC households, located in 30 randomly selected villages in the three regions of Punjab, is being conducted. Objectives is to: conduct a feasibility study of income generation by household dairies in rural scheduled caste; suggest measures to promote milk production; analyse the role of women in the production and sale of milk in the SC households. Random sample of 300 Milch animals owning households (10 from each village) will be selected to find out the number of milch animals owned, amount of milk produced and sold, sources of green fodder and busa and the problems faced by them in keeping Milch animals’; Outcome: Report on ‘Milk Production as Supplementary Source of Income for Rural Scheduled Caste of Punjab.’

Experience since the roll-out of GST has not been very encouraging due to its inept implementation. It is expected that there is going to be a shortfall of Rs 500 billion in the revenue collection for the period August 2017 to March 2018 compared to the budget estimates. Objective is to explore how the GST implementation has impacted the various size units and its implications in terms of the employment. Undertaken a survey for the State of Punjab to examine the impact of GST. Analysis done for the Kurali area (S.A.S. District) reveals that GST has eased the operations for larger units, interstate movements have been facilitated and availing input credit for them has improved to a great extent; they are dissatisfied with the new registration requirements for each state whenever they need to have additional set-ups; multiple registrations should be done away. In the new indirect tax system, the share of the states is determined on the basis of the destination of the product rather than the location of production. Most of the smaller units expressed various difficulties; these include low demand of their products, non-familiarity with e-tax return, frequent filing of returns; all this add pressure on the liquidity as the buyers make payments only after 3-4 months. Despite low GST rate of 1 per cent on the composition units, problem of the smaller units gets compounded over time due to the cascading tax affect. The units that are registered under composition scheme with less than Rs 15 million, are not allowed to avail the input credit. Findings highlight non-availability of input tax credit to purchasers from the composition and unregistered GST units’ results in a cascading tax impact, the regular GST entities don’t prefer to purchase unless they are compensated for the same. The units below the turnover limit of Rs 15 million are, thus, becoming exclusive from the mainstream transactions rendering them non-competitive. This squeezes the earnings and wages of micro units engaging 61.4 per cent of non-agriculture sector workforce; retain 1 per cent GST on composition units with full input tax credit option to sellers and buyers, in the event of purchases by regular GST units, by allowing say 50 per cent concessions to micro units on net payable tax; unit with regular GST should be asked to bear compliance obligation; help recovery of micro units and bring transparency; large GST data base and employment details can further be used to capture direct tax evasion.

Comprising over 30 percent of the total population of Punjab. National Sample Survey of 2011-12, recorded 86 percent of agricultural labourers’ in rural Punjab are dalits; economic conditions of dalit households in rural Punjab i.e. average monthly per capita consumption expenditure is just two thirds of the average rural per capita consumption expenditure in the state; invisibility of women’s labour and extremely low labour participation rate statistics, make agricultural women insignificant in the agrarian sector debates. Research explores specifically the nature of social conflict, the social, political and economic alliances that are emerging and Dalit women’s location within these.

Analyses the political dynamics of Punjab by studying the political, economic and demographic contexts of alliances between Punjab’s political parties; finds forging alliances is more practiced in Punjab than in any other Indian state; identifies three axes which provided conditions for competitive political space – encouraging identity assertions; majority ambitions vs minority aspirations; and religio-caste and class articulations. Punjab’s politics has evolved around these axes as their interaction with politics economy and social processes led to the emergence of coalition of interests; this complex interaction has posed challenges to locate the dominant identity in a particular context.

2018-19

Rural scheduled castes are the most disadvantaged group of Indian Society; the percolation of benefits of economic development and government welfare schemes to them is very slow and disproportionate due to their low social status, weak political clout and virtual landlessness; lack of experience and initiative in organizing independent economic enterprises. Objective is to prepare a detailed profile of the current living conditions and consumption standard of rural Scheduled Castes of Punjab; aimed to find out how they have fared in sharing the benefits of the transformation of Punjab rural economy and government welfare schemes launched since Independence. Information from the Census survey of Scheduled Caste households shows that in terms of the living conditions and consumption standard, the rural Scheduled Castes of Punjab have not done badly in comparison to the rural non-Scheduled Castes of the State, in spite of their landlessness and low wage agricultural labour employment. When compared with the rural Scheduled Castes of other major States of India they have done quite well and rank number one in the living conditions and consumption standard. Focus of the government policy should be on the 3.62 per cent of the rural Scheduled Caste households of the State, who are living in very poor conditions and at a low level of consumption;  households should be given a hand pump or water tap and a latrine in their own house, and also electricity connection and LP Gas connection free of cost; their houses should be connected with proper drain for disposal of the waste water; should be given adequate subsidy to construct pucca houses and purchase a T.V. and a bicycle; the financial cost of lifting these 50000 households out of poverty cannot be very high and the State should be prepared to afford it in a phased manner. Long-term policy should be to provide drinking water source, latrine, and proper drain outlet for the disposal of waste water to every rural Scheduled Caste household; be encouraged to go in for multi-stories pucca houses, by giving subsidy and low interest loans.

Internal migrants to ‘key destination areas’, migration from the ‘lead source states’ of internal migrants to areas like the Northeast or migration from the Northeast, is neglected or not studied within the larger framework of internal migrants in India; studies regarding internal migration from northeast states to metros are very recent and still very limited despite the fact that the degree of migration from northeast, particularly from Manipur, has significantly increased in the recent years. Aimed to address the concerns of migrants from the North East Region (NER) in urban areas of Bangalore who have of late come in large numbers in pursuit of multiple opportunities; question of ‘who migrates, why and for what purposes’ is explored; the question of discrimination based on racial background is examined. The study would be useful in framing origin oriented policies which would help mitigate choice less/imaginative migration so that the people from the migrating state are benefited. Study has pointed out clearly the development-security nexus that is responsible for creating pressure for out-migration; setting up departments like DONER (Department for the Development of the North Eastern Region), has been ineffective in achieving its objectives; thrust should be on creating infrastructure that leads to employment generation in the region; a need to raise confidence of the people in the governance of the region, breaking nexus between local politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and insurgents;  suggested to brings short term migrant labourers within the purview of government schemes and Enforce Equal Conditions at Workplace;migration to be a short term strategy and not long term goal;mitigate potentially negative costs and risks of migration: (awareness about their rights, sensitisation of law enforcement agencies, curb unscrupulous labour agents, formulate and prepare a mechanism to enforce occupational health and safety standards);promotion of ‘decent work’ for migrant labourers;stimulate public awareness on migration;creation of opportunities;streamlining ‘Look East’ and ‘Act East’ policy in consonance with the goal of overall development of North Eastern Region;popularisation of their culture through festivals and cross cultural engagement; and political and social integration.

Fast growth of Punjab agriculture has not only brought appreciable gains for the farmers of the state in terms of improved levels of income and living, but also made the country self-sufficient in food grains; huge and regular surplus of rice and wheat produced by Punjab farmers is the main pillar of country’s food security. With less than 2 per cent of area of the country, Punjab contributes almost one-third of the central pool of food grains; almost entire production of rice and wheat in the state is irrigated and most of it with controlled tube well irrigation.Aims to identify the negative consequences of growth of agriculture in Punjab, especially post-green revolution; yield growth, ground water table, farmers’ indebtedness and debt related suicides, soil fertility and environment, employment opportunities in farming; all these negative consequences have combined together to make farming less remunerative in pure economic terms and fast marginalization of small farmers.Findings include: Punjab agriculture experienced an extraordinary growth during Green Revolution era – be it yield, gross value of farm output, tractors and tube wells; number of small farmers in Punjab has continuously declined over the 1970-71 to 2010-11 period; compared to the continuous rise in the number of small farmers in rest of India; cropping intensity as well as agriculture inputs used per acre in Punjab is many times high relatively to India; but the slow growth of their income and gap between a small and large farmer’s income is a major concern. Dairy farming, high value agriculture commodities and non-farming activities may raise the income levels of small farmers in short and long terms; ground water level is falling at a rapid rate in many parts of the state endangering thereby the sustainability of tube well irrigation; water logging has emerged as a major problem in the South-West Punjab and a large number of farmers have left farming in the state due to it becoming non-remunerative over the period of time; the environment in the state has become degraded due to the growth of pesticide residues in the water, vegetables, grains, also due to the mass burning of paddy and wheat straw by farmers to clear the fields for sowing the next crop. The experience shows that the government is trying to tackle these problems in its usual slow and sluggish manner.

Most of the adult females of the rural Scheduled Caste households in Punjab do not work on the farms, owing to various cultural factors and other reasons, and remain unemployed. The keeping of milch animals and production/sale of milk is the most feasible as well as most suitable method of gainfully employing the unemployed female labour of the rural Scheduled Caste families. The production/sale of milk can become a good supplementary source of income for these households, if they adopt it on a regular basis.The adult females of these households can engage in this activitywithout leaving their homes, along with their other household duties. Moreover, no new skills are to belearnt by them; almost all of them are quite familiar with the subroutinesof this activity. Also, the investment needed to purchase a milchanimal is not very big; and bank loans are available for purchasing milch animals. The most advantageous aspect being that the marketing of milk is not a problem; a milk purchase Centre/society and number of private dairies exist in every village. In spite of these clear advantages, milk production/sale is not very extensively used as a supplementary source of income by the rural Scheduled Caste households in the State. There are some hindrances and constraints that prevent the universal adoption of milch animals and milk production as a supplementary source of income by the rural Scheduled Caste households in Punjab. The present Study is aimed at such a detailed investigation of the milch animal ownership and milk production by the rural Scheduled Caste households of Punjab. Study aims at: to find out the extent of milch animal ownership among the rural Scheduled Caste households in Punjab and role of women in the production and sale of milk in the SC households; to find out the number and type of the milch animals owned by the rural SC households and; to estimate the quantity of milk produced by these households and its disposal in terms of sale and self-consumption; to conduct a feasibility study of income generation by household diaries; to estimate the operational costs of maintaining the milch animals, and the return from milk production, after meeting the operational costs; to find out the problems and constraints faced by these households in maintaining the milch animals; and, to prepare a feasible policy package to promote milch animal ownership among these households, by making milk production remunerative activity. Findings are: in maintaining milch animals, the rural Scheduled Caste households face many problems and constraints; that about 62 per cent of them did not own any animal;  out of remaining 38 percent households, 34 per cent were having milch animals, and the other 4 per cent were owning some non-milch animal; constraints for not keeping milch animals are the lack of space in their houses, small size of the family and the non-availability of adequate spare family adult female labour, non-remunerative nature of the milk production, high prices of wheat chaff, green fodder and feed concentrate as compared to the price of milk, and, non-availability of cheap and timely veterinary services was another problem. Study recommended; allocation of small animal shed plots for the landless SC households to keep the milch animals, provision for availability of regular year round and cheap supply of dry and green fodder for the animals; veterinary services cost may be borne by the State for the SC households; insurance of the milch animals, the banks may also provide loans at low interest to the rural SC households.

Highlights the constraints faced by the economy in achieving higher, inclusive and sustainable growth. Higher growth is projected based on achievable potential in case corrective strategy is adopted to resolve the constraints for the three year periods: 2017-18 to 2019-20, 2020-21 to 2023-24 and by 2030-31. Findings are Punjab state has good base in grain mills, rice shellers, metal-based light engineering, knitwear and hosiery, leather and leather products, and sports goods industries; 95 percent of the woolen knitwear produced in the country is made in the textile clusters based in Ludhiana; large scale sector in the state could not perform well despite the presence of a few large players in the state in industries such as automotive and textiles, in which state was in fact having comparative advantages. Higher growth rate of 8.5per cent per annum in the Punjab economy is essential to double the GVA per employee by 2030 at full employment rate; in case growth rate restrict at the rate of 7.4 per cent per annum, the target of doubling labour productivity remain unfulfilled at full employment level; the labour productivity index may grow 1.62 times at full employment rate. The doubling of productivity per worker is essential in order to enhance the affordability to pay decent emoluments to workers without harming the growth prospects. R & D, labor training and infrastructural development can help in achieving the target of high growth in productivity and employment by promoting modernization of labour intensive technology; need for several structural changes in the Punjab economy in case we want the growth to be inclusive. The labour need to be moved out from slower growth sector to faster growth sectors.

Industrialization in Punjab was fairly limited and restricted to the development of agro-processing and agro-input machinery industries due to the high growth of agriculture; an important feature of Punjab’s industries is the dominance of small scale enterprises, more than 8 percent registered small-scale units; an important feature of the Punjab’s manufacturing sector is its increased reliance on other states for raw materials; study looks at the industrial development in Punjab from various aspects.

Nature of tenancy in Punjab has completely changed, but tenancy laws of the State have not changed in line with it; these laws have become not only irrelevant, but also an impediment in the further development of productive forces and structural changes in Punjab agriculture. Many inefficient big landowners are continuing in self-cultivation owning to the fear of losing the rented out land under the provisions of these laws. Consequently, production from the existing cultivated area of the State is not maximized. These outmoded tenancy laws need to be replaced by a set of modern land lease laws. The new land lease laws will also help the tenants in getting credit from the banks at low rate of interest on the basis of written registered land lease contracts. Objective is to discuss outmoded tenancy laws by a set of modern tenancy laws.Findings are tenancy laws have not only become irrelevant, but also a major hindrance in the further development of the productive forces and structural change in Punjab agriculture. These laws are responsible for creating many imperfections and negative consequences in the land lease market and obstruct the free flow of land for cultivation among the rural households. As a result, the leased-in area remains sub-optimal and production from the existing area is not maximized. On account of these laws, many inefficient landowners persist in self-cultivation and withdrawal of the surplus labor from agriculture is slowed down. The modernization of the tenancy laws will not put any additional financial burden on the Government; as the enforcement costs of these laws will be much smaller than the existing tenancy laws. The beginning has been made in Punjab by the 2011 amendment, but much more needs to be done to make leasing out land absolutely risk free for the lessors; security of tenure to the tenants should be guaranteed till the expiry of the agreed lease period; absolute unencumbered right of the landowner to get his land back after the expiry of the lease period should be enforced quickly and hassle free.

Focus has shifted more to females which is known as feminization of migration. pattern and causes of female migration are changing in India. An increasing proportion of women are moving towards cities; the process of globalization has a strong influence on female mobility patterns and the major motivation for female migration has changed from social to economic reasons. Education is one of the important factors which affect women’s migration pattern. The most commonly seen migration is that of the students, who face a very basic but critical problem of finding adequate living space for themselves. Accommodation and living conditions is the first problem encountered by students leaving their cities and moving to another city to get higher education. The present study has focused on the living conditions of students staying in Hostels and Paying Guests in Chandigarh. Objectives of the study are to highlight the socio-economic profile of female students residing in Hostels or as Paying Guests; to study the expenditure incurred by student on accommodations; and, to analyze the living conditions of Hostel and Paying Guest students in Chandigarh. Analyses of data revealed that students migrating from different states prefer to stay in hostel particularly up to under graduate level; important factors that influence accommodation preferences are proximity to campus, rental value, length of stay, food, preferences to stay at same place and the level of facilities provided; the living conditions in Hostels or Paying Guests differ significantly in terms of security and facilities provided; research scholars are more likely prefer Paying Guests as they become more independent and reported higher priorities for freedom than their younger counterparts; students belonging to age category of below 20 years prefer Hostel than Paying Guests; majority of the sampled students’ last year residence was Hostel while many of them stayed as Paying Guests. Around one-third of the hostellers and one-fourth of students staying as Paying Guests haven’t changed their last year residence. Majority of Paying Guest student’s duration of stay is less than 1year while Hostellers live for longer duration; maximum tenure for hostellers was found to be 9 years and 5 years for those staying in paying guests; study recommended setting up of a Regulatory Board for the purpose of regulating the operation of Hostels and Paying Guest accommodations; the Board shall carryout detailed survey of all the private hostels and Paying Guest accommodations currently operational and frame mandatory minimum criteria of operations and basic services to be provided by them. Issue of women safety is always a concern at these places. The most significant concern is fixation of rent by the local urban government authorities.

Availability of mode of transportation and communication has increased the mobility of Ladakhi students; a large segment of the students migrates to other parts of India in order to pursue higher education; Ladakhi students have started migrating to Delhi, Jammu and Chandigarh for higher studies. This study makes an attempt to study profile of migrant students of Leh-Ladakh in Chandigarh. Objectives of this study are to examine the socio-economic profile, issues/problems faced, the living conditions, and, expenditure of Ladakhi students in Chandigarh. Establishing an autonomous multi-disciplinary University in Ladakh would benefit students who are not able to migrate or cannot afford to migrate to pursue quality higher education in Ladakh itself;  residential school should be started in remote areas as it will reduce the drop-out rate as well as the out-migration of school student; help desks for migrant students should be started in educational institutions to assist students at time of finding accommodation and any type of harassments; when they feel home sickness and mental stress during exam days.

Punjab and Andhra Pradesh were the first two states starting the single window initiative in India. Punjab lagged behind other reform areas such as obtaining construction permit, allotment of land, complying with labor regulations, and was given the status of “Acceleration Required”. Punjab improved in the areas of SWS, access to information and transparency enablers, environment reforms, tax reforms, but performed poorly in case of getting electricity connection, enforcing contracts and availability of land. Despite being a pioneer in setting up a business, Punjab lagged in other reform areas due to: weak online infrastructure, lack of proper access to information and awareness, and, lack of technical skill among staff leading to discouragement of online processes. The study compares the fiscal incentives offered by the State of Punjab to the neighbouring industrial State Haryana to critical evaluate the implications of these measures. The analysis takes into account the several Fiscal Incentives to units announced in Punjab industrial policy 2017. Objectives are to analyze impact of schemes like Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) and implementation of GST on structure of Indian economy and small scale sector; to explore how the GST implementation has impacted the various size units and its implications in terms of the employment; quantum of Investment Subsidies in terms of net SGST in various areas of these states; interest subsidies for backward areas/districts; Credit linked capital subsidy scheme (CLCSS); fee charged under Collateral Free Credit Guarantee Trust for Micro and Small enterprises (CGTMSE) Scheme; review the assistance provided for technology acquisition; analyse the Exemptions on Change in land Use (CLU) and External Development Charges (EDC); study the Power subsidies, etc. in the two states; and, analyse the impact of fiscal incentives on employment.Findings revealed that GST has eased the operations for larger units, interstate movements have been facilitated and availing input credit for them has improved; most of the large and mega entities are happy with the transparency that GST system has brought despite the losses incurred at times due to frequent changes in GST tax rates; are dissatisfied with the new registration requirements for each state whenever they need to have additional set-ups, these multiple registrations should be done away with. Most of the smaller units expressed various difficulties being faced by them after the imposition of GST; these include low demand of their products, especially, from the larger units, non-familiarity with e-tax return, frequent filing of returns; all this add pressure on the liquidity as the buyers make payments only after 3-4 months; highlights non-availability of input tax credit to purchasers from the composition and unregistered GST units’ results in a cascading tax impact.

State through its governance reforms, the ease of doing business and economic liberalization process has successfully set up a congenial environment for the industry to perform better; the industry-sector faces certain challenges pertaining to availability and utilization, impact and effectiveness, of the economic incentives and subsidies. The study is conducted to assess the same and suggest recommendations to improve the business conditions. Punjab, having seen nine industrial policies, beginning 1978 till 2017, one of the key targets of all these policies was to ensure the survival and progress of the MSMEs under the fierce competition not only from other industrial advanced states but also from the multinational companies.  Also, the primary focus of these policies was to provide incentives/concessions and subsidies to the new units to encourage industrial investment and support existing small, medium and large scale industries in Punjab. The industrial policy of 2017 usher bold reforms in the form of restructuring of the institutions and designing a framework which ensures sustainable industrial growth. The government of Punjab is providing various capital incentives and subsidies to various industries on various levels to induce industries in the industrially-backward regions and enable industry sector to not only act as propeller of economic growth but also generate employment avenues. However, need is to carefully examine the need of subsidies and their extent of benefit in the industrial development of Punjab and whether these benefits are channelized properly and if there is a need to redirect distribution of these economic benefits. Overall, the incentive-based policies have positive and progressive impact on the production level, employment generation and profits. An effort is needed to invest in human capital formation and in establishing a better infrastructure to revive the dying industrial sector of Punjab. This report recommends improving the efficiency of existing inputs and to work on developing new technologies to meet the global competition; industrial parks and clusters can be developed in the backward districts with focus on agro-based industries and promote demand-based cultivation; functioning of the Directorate of Industries should be reviewed and reoriented to make it more relevant to meet the requirements of the industry; recommendations proposed shall certainly be helpful in making the industrial sector in Punjab more vibrant; analyze the impact of government subsidies on small firms or start-ups and the leftover small and medium industries in the incentive-based outreach programmes.

From 1967-68 to 2018-19, the milk production in Punjab grew at the rate of 3.85 per cent per year; main hindrances in the expansion of the dairy farms are: shortage of finance, low profitability in dairy farming and inadequate land with the landowners to grow fodder; Similarly, with the landless households, the main problems are lack of space to make sheds for the animals, non-availability of land to grow fodder and shortage of family labor to take care of the animals; main problems to develop the cross breed;  need of a concrete strategy to expand the dairy farming because the demand for milk is increasing; first, why are the dairy farmers planning to leave the dairy farming or not interested to expand the herd size; secondly, proper training programmes of the potential dairy farmers should be conducted;  thirdly, the availability of the green fodder within the villages at stalls may be developed; fourth, identify the persons or the cluster of villages who may collect the dead animals from the farms immediately. Fifth, special corpus fund should be created for the dairy farming.

Economy of Punjab, which is sixteenth largest in the country is primarily dominated by agriculture and small and medium enterprises, requires a strong banking network for the well-functioning of the activities; study tries to understand how banking has developed since independence in Punjab and whether there is an effect of measures taken by government on the expansion of banks in Punjab; how the banking level stands at the present in the whole state as well in different districts and regions of the State; banks expansion which is fundamental to the improvement of financial infrastructure is extensively studied.

Attempt is made to study the urbanization and size-structure of towns in Punjab. The data on total and urban population of Punjab for period (1951-2011) is collected form statistical abstract to see the growth of urban population over that period. Density of population distribution of towns was analyzed by obtaining the size of the towns (in km); an important indicator of quality of life, a higher population density is related to the lower standard of living; analyzed various aspects of growth and distribution of population of Punjab.

2021-22

During COVID-19, the employment opportunities declined due to various closures/lockdown. This resulted in large-scale reverse migration of domestic workers from urban and rural work places to the point of origin; study examines the trends in employment under MGNREGA in rural Punjab, gender and social group wise and analyses the impact of MGNREGA on wages in rural economy of the state; also outlined the reasons for increase in women’s employment under the Act during COVID-19 period and underlined the challenges faced in implementation of the Act in the present scenario; examined the significance of MGNREGA in providing secured livelihood to rural households. The main data sources used for this study are unit-wise NSS/PLFS data for various rounds and data from the MGNREGA website; importance increased at the time of pandemic. The share of MGNREGA in Punjab’s rural women workforce increased by 28.1 percentage points from 25.0% from pre-COVID-19 level; increase in case of males is merely 5.1 percentage point among rural male workforce for Punjab. Clearly the stress level is very high in India compared to Punjab.

The number of stray cattle roaming on roads, and in villages and towns of Punjab has been increasing in recent years and has become very large; present study was to generate and assemble such information, so that suitable policy steps are devised and implemented basing on such information; based on a primary survey of 30 villages and 12 towns randomly selected from the six agro-climatic regions of Punjab; secondary data from Census of Cattle, 2019, is also used. findings of the study, the total number of stray animals in Punjab is 1.82 lakh. All these stray animals are cows; not even one stray buffalo was found in villages and towns by our survey team; out of these 1.82 lakh stray cows, 1.21 lakh are in villages, 8926; damage caused by these stray cows to human life through accidents, and to farmers’ crops is considerable; crop losses caused by stray animals equal to Rs.141.21 crores; and were spending Rs.1.83 crore per year on barbed wire fencing to protect their crops from stray animals; and were spending Rs.26.47 crore rupees per year to hire Rakhas to save the crops from destruction caused by stray animals; total financial loss to farmers caused by stray animals worked out to Rs.169.51 crore rupees per year; on an average about 952 stray animals caused accidents occurred in the State every year.

State is contributing 25.53 percent rice and 35.46 percent wheat to the Central Pool of India; the developed marketing infrastructure and strong network of the commission agents in the market to facilitate the sale and purchase of wheat and rice in the market; 54.17 percent of farmers depend upon commission agents for short term loans; relationship between the farmers and the commission agents are cordial and have existed for many years; 70 5% (300 farmers surveyed) are dealing with same commission agents for the last over twenty five years; in the wheat-cotton region 65 percent of the farmers are dependent upon commission agents for loans. it can be safely said that the commission agents are playing a very useful role in the marketing of the farm produce and in providing credit to the farmers; present farm protests have further strengthened their relationships.

2022-23

Remarkable change has come in the land markets in terms of land prices and acquisition of land for non-agricultural uses; significant changes have come in the ownership of land; a decline in the number of marginal farmers and land lease markets completely changed. This was aimed to capture such changes in the characteristics of land holdings in major Indian States over the post-liberalization years on the basis of various secondary data sources.

70 percent of the area is under rice cultivation; sowing of rice is completely manual and existing TPR method of rice sowing consumes more water and has resulted in continuous fall in water table; focused mainly on: evaluation of DSR and TPR techniques in Punjab; agro-climatic region wise adoption of DSR; impact of DSR on the use of agriculture inputs and yield level of paddy; constraints in the adoption of DSR. Findings are: Only 2.15 percent Rice Area under DSR; highest percentage of area under DSR is in Western Malwa i.e. 49.57 percent; lowest is in Northern and Foothills regions; percentage of total irrigated area by tube wells is negative and significant; percentage of NSA under rice in 1991-92 is negative and is significant at 10 percent level; larger average size of holding also impact the adoption of DSR

2013-14

Aimed to understand the nature and the process of urban development in Punjab; contribution of urban centres to GDP is substantial; concluded that urban services are lacking particularly in relation to public sanitary amenities like solid waste management and housing; process of migration, proliferation of slums, and absence of holistic planning has made urban governance dysfunctional. suggest reforms in five spheres of: Policy Planning; Legislation; Finance and Governance

70 percent of the area is under rice cultivation; sowing of rice is completely manual and existing TPR method of rice sowing consumes more water and has resulted in continuous fall in water table; focused mainly on: evaluation of DSR and TPR techniques in Punjab; agro-climatic region wise adoption of DSR; impact of DSR on the use of agriculture inputs and yield level of paddy; constraints in the adoption of DSR. Findings are: Only 2.15 percent Rice Area under DSR; highest percentage of area under DSR is in Western Malwa i.e. 49.57 percent; lowest is in Northern and Foothills regions; percentage of total irrigated area by tube wells is negative and significant; percentage of NSA under rice in 1991-92 is negative and is significant at 10 percent level; larger average size of holding also impact the adoption of DSR

Systematic Voter Education and electoral Participation (SVEEP) is a programme initiated by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to educate the citizens regarding electoral enrollment and their responsibility to cast their vote. The survey of Punjab state aims to understand the level of knowledge, belief, perception, readiness, trends, factors and reasons of enrollment of non-enrollment of electors; comprehend the reasons behind not coming forward to vote, demographics of electoral segment of population, the role and influence of news media, and suggest plausible measures to ensure high voter turnout. Incorporation of reforms such as “right to reject”, option of negative vote, possibility of casting a vote via post or other alternatives and so on

Deras in Punjab are not only powerful in the religious domain but also assert political clout by issuing dictates to their devotees regarding voting; captures the changing contours of the religious, social, political as well as cultural discourses in the state of Punjab where Sikhism always remained a defining force of polity. It will be helpful in understanding the nature of the recent socio-religious and political conflict concerning the Deras; helpful in understanding the electoral dynamics and the manner in which these dynamics are shaped by their current religious formations; understand the phenomena of the Deras in the state of Punjab; Deras have significant following among the Punjabi Diasporas.

Need to correct the misconception that Islam is against family welfare practices; issues of health of mother and child and reproductive health of women were analyzed drawing extensively from Holy Quran and the Prophet’s words; explored relevance of the institution of family for procreation, rights of women and children with reference to Islamic jurisprudence.

Focuses on the migration of highly skilled health professionals working in management, planning and education from the Philippines, India, South Africa, and Jamaica; research questions asked will: What is the present picture of recent trends in the migration?;What are the most critical consequences of the migration of highly skilled health workers?; What is the range of policy responses that have been considered, proposed and implemented to address the issues?Encompasses a broadly-focused scoping review of the literature and policy documents from 2000 to the present to provide background information; involves primary and secondary data collection initiated with research team meetings in each of the participating countries; will involve broader consultation with key international agencies interested in migration of highly skilled health professionals; will involve comprehensive data analysis and review leading to policy recommendations. Aims: joining policy network examining the health equity impacts of the international migration of highly skilled health workers; developing a strong local evidence base of migration causes, consequences; benefiting from findings in three other countries.

2017-18

Analyses quantitative as well as qualitative disparities in Dal Roti scheme launched under NFS Act, 2013 among the various categories of the beneficiaries across 8 selected districts, among the female and male, and socio-economic categories; aims to measure the satisfaction level of the beneficiaries, check the bottlenecks in the distribution of grains and examining the issues of systematic and technology related errors; concludes that the scheme has provided the food security to the poor population; there is a need to eradicate the leakages, weed out the ghost beneficiaries, and improve transparency and accountability.

Addresses the concerns of migrants from the state of Manipur to New Delhi in pursuit of multiple opportunities as well as that of the migrants in Manipur; the question of ‘who migrates’ or which ethnic community/group migrates more and why;  useful in framing origin (Manipur) oriented policies which would help mitigate choice less/imaginative migration; and  help in understanding the question of ‘outsiders’ who migrated to the state of Manipur and which has now become a subject of intense debate wherein the ‘outsiders’ are seen to have ‘captured’ opportunities which, otherwise would have belonged to the ‘sons of the soil’.

Analyses the current predicament of the state-run childcare institutions in Punjab and challenges faced by them in meeting the objectives of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015; discover gaps in their functioning, understand challenges pertaining to the prescribed norms and carrying out procedural duties, analyze the operating environment of these institutions, check the effectiveness of the current law, functioning of the mandated official bodies, recommend suggestions. All possible care, protection, development, treatment and social re-integration of children is required by adopting child-friendly approach keeping in view the best interest of the child; existing model of juvenile justice has so far managed to ensure a safe institutional facility for the vulnerable group of children; need is to move beyond the surface level of providing these children with amenities like food, shelter and clothing, but, focus on their re-integration back into the society.

2021-22

Anganwadi Centers were set up under the Integrated Child Development Services Programme (ICDS) to deliver services like outreach services to low-income families in need of immunization, healthy food, and a learning environment for preschoolers; study was undertaken to evaluate infrastructural gaps in the AWTCs and identify areas where AWWs’ capacity building needs to be addressed; findings indicate that all the four AWTCs are running with bare minimum facilities; none of the four centers was found to have adequate infrastructure nor did they follow prescribed syllabus, training material or training methodology; identified the areas where capacity building of AWWs needs to be strengthened; It has been suggested that the state should give more attention to the quality of training being imparted to the frontline workers.

2022-23

Present exercise would serve as a learning laboratory to understand how the service delivery models of comprehensive primary healthcare through AB-HWCs take place, to serve as benchmarks or sites that can act as inspiration or best practice site for programme officers from other centers to support scaling up of CPHC; present status of HWC at Daria requires immediate attention of the UT authorities to fulfill the mandate of HWC as prescribed under the guidelines; there are many lacunae in the infrastructure and service delivery that needs to be plugged.

2023-24

Under Phase-II of “Establishing Model AB-HWC for Delivering Comprehensive Primary Health Care in the State SHC-HWC, Daria” the awareness drive at village Daria has been completed and the report for 2023-2024 has been submitted.

2014-15

Objective: to analyse the characteristics of the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections; to examine the validity of the hypothesis that ‘Modi’s phenomenon’ has been largely shaped by the semi-urban and urban aspiring classes and has to be understood through the urban prisms; to decode the electoral verdict in Punjab as well by discussing pertinent questions, why did the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with its ally the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) not maintain its electoral position in Punjab? How did the Aam Admi Party (AAP) win only in Punjab? How come the so-called ‘right wing shift relating to role of state’ in right wing ruled state of Punjab could not garner more votes for the BJP-Modi led coalition? Why did Narendra Modi’s charisma as a leader not win votes even for a stalwart like Arun Jaitley with an unblemished image in Punjab? Findings: voter behaviour is not guided by a wave, but a measured response to the available electoral choices; in the absence of any alternate vision, the electoral discourse conveniently located crony capitalism, unemployment, poverty and inequalities in the policy paralysis; Modi-led BJP campaign selectively appropriated symbols and icons from Indian history and invoked ideology to make these sound inclusive; historically, a number of leaders and political parties used religious and national symbols and spaces; bifurcation of politics among the Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus shall help to represent the secular interests of the religious groups in politics. This is nothing but sheer communalism; BJP changed its stance from strong centre to a greater autonomy the for states, and the SAD changed its position from anti-centrism to co-operative federalism; giving representation to all the existing fault lines of religion and caste by the competing political parties; SAD party, which has been mainly a party of the Jat-Sikh peasants, gave representation to Punjabi Hindus with 11 out of 94 SAD candidates for the 2012 assembly elections; Punjab’s electoral politics has shown signs of blurring religious and caste fault lines; SAD pursued its agenda for the rural population with decisions like, free electricity and water to the peasantry but without pursuing the Sikh minority politics; after post-2014 elections, the BJP has signalled to expand its support base in the state; nationalised regional agenda by raising issues like, transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, resolution of river water disputes, and social issues and more powers for the states. This has forced its alliance partner the SAD on to a weak wicket and may push it to look back and revive ideological persuasions for survival; 2017 elections may witness a radical change in the Punjab politics; electoral politics has taken a new shift in Punjab. Outcomes of 2014 elections in the state are diametrically opposed to the national trend; voters have voted against corruption and incapacity of the leadership to deliver justice; AAP used a popular screen to make their concerns appear pro-people, and provided legitimacy to these by using civilizational and national freedom movement symbols. People have voted for AAP; AAP forced political parties to adopt corruption, Jan Lokpal as an agenda and provided a platform to the common people; people of Punjab did not cast their votes on the leadership issue, but on performance; in Chandigarh, people voted for the leadership of Modi as anti-incumbency was a factor against the Congress and not the BJP; in Punjab, people were of the view that a change in the central leadership is needed; Mr. Modi’s leadership as a factor became secondary to anti-incumbency.

2015-16

Objective: assesses the effectiveness of core social protection programmes in Punjab using the following criteria: coverage; targeting efficiency; potential impact on household welfare. quantitative assessment based on two subsequent rounds of NSSO (Household Consumption Expenditure and Employment-Unemployment) data, National Family Health Survey-3 (NFHS-3) and official government documents. Findings: Punjab has consistently lagged behind other States of India in terms of social sector spending;  analysis of schemes operating at the national level, such as, Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) implies that the coverage in Punjab is very low compared to other major States and the national average;  poor households, non poor households (with monthly per capita consumption expenditure above the official poverty line) are also benefiting from the schemes; beneficiaries from SC/OBC households exceed beneficiaries from other caste groups; coverage is especially high in case of agricultural labour households and casual labour households; due to the fact that there is an element of self-selection in the schemes; heterogeneity in the effectiveness of delivery of the services; no in-depth analysis on the impact of the schemes on household welfare (unlike in other States of India), especially, for those households which belong to the economically and socially vulnerable groups.

2004-05

Community policing continues to dominate the discourse for building up peoples’ stakes for ensuring security and safety. A number of initiatives have been launched globally. The success of these initiatives could not be replicated and sustained in the absence of institutionalized structures and mechanisms. The toolkit contains steps for institutionalization, strategic instruments for operationalising institutionalization and indicators to measure the progress of democratic community policing in a multicultural context.

The Punjab-Punjab games were a brain child of the two Chief Ministers of Punjab and became one of the biggest confidence building measures undertaken by the two countries in the past year. The CPRCs, as a showcase of partnership between the security agencies and community representatives with efficiency in service delivery as a core element, promotes the importance of people-to-people contact in the conduct of government business

Criminal justice system index is being developed and is being implemented in three layers, i.e., identification of the relevant indicators, methodology, and development of the index.

Countries of South Asia are throwing up new conflicts and challenges as posed by the developments in politics, culture, region and socio-economic formations; conflicts have their basis in the quest for identity, re-allocation of scarce resources, and competition for acquiring power; acquired alarming proportions and virtually engulfed every dimension of the human existence; acquisition of nuclear weapons by some countries further adds to the culture of violence in the region, which has acquired greater legitimacy with the people. Consequently, many conflict situations are taking a violent form and have resulted in the violation of the rights of the citizens; needs to identify research issues for peace building in the region.

2005-06

Objectives are to assess the overall quality of urban governance in selected local bodies; to assess through intensive and in-depth analysis, performance with reference to the areas of property tax, regulation of new construction and water supply; to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the delivery systems of the selected services and to recommend improvements required in the institutions, rules, procedures and processes to optimize the performance of the local bodies.

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