Department of Economics

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Open Access
Socio-economic aspects of migration from rural India: study of West Bengal
(University of North Bengal, 2019) Das, Yasodhara; Roy Mukherjee, Sanchari; Ramachandran, V. K.
This thesis is concerned with short term/seasonal/circular migration for work from rural India. It attempts to describe and critically analyse the magnitude of such migration from the available secondary and primary sources of data and will try to bring out the relevance of such migration from rural West Bengal. According to the 64th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on Employment, Unemployment and Migration (2007-8) there were 324 million internal migrants in India, which is almost 29 per cent of the total population, 140 million of whom were workers. On the remittance front, the NSS estimates reveal that international remittances received in India comprised about half of the domestic remittances received. The results also indicate that ninety-one per cent of migrants in rural areas and 59 per cent of migrants in urban areas in India had migrated from a rural region. Rural migrants thus constitute a large proportion of short-term /seasonal/circularmigrants who move for work/employment related reasons.The 55th (1999-2000) and the 64th rounds (2007-8) of the NSSO tried to quantify short duration migration.Estimates of short-term migrants vary from 15 million (NSSO 2007–8) to 40 million (Srivastava, 2011) to 100 million (Deshingkar and Akter 2009). Research on the socio-economic characteristics of this stream of migrant workers and the impact of migrant earnings on the rural household incomes, is thus necessary for an understanding of this crucial segment of India‘s labour force. A brief overview of the chapters of this thesis is given below: The first chapter introduces the research topic; reviews the available literature relevant to the study, states the research questions and the research methodology followed during study.The second chapter is intended to describe and critically evaluate the results obtained from the secondary database available i.e. the Census and the NSS surveys and compare their methodology with that of various primary surveys on internal migration. The third chapter is intended to describe and critically evaluate the results obtained from the secondary database i.e. the NSS survey with special focus on West Bengal. The fourth chapter introduces the villages which will be studied as the origin of the migrant worker. For this purpose I study the villages of West Bengal which were surveyed by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies as part of the 2010 West Bengal Round survey of the Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI). The fifth chapter is intended to compare the socio-economic conditions of migrant and non-migrant households in the study villages. The sixth chapter analyses the difference between migrant and non-migrant households with respect to rural household incomes. The seventh chapter studies the migrant worker at the destination. The samples for this study are the migrant construction workers from West Bengal who migrate to the Ernakulam district of Kerala. The demographic and socio-economic characteristicsof migrant workers is studied in this chapter. The final chapter summarizes the specific findings of the chapters of the thesis.
Open Access
The Pattern of demographic changes in Darjeeling hill areas : implications for future generations
(University of North Bengal, 2008) Das, Minakshi; Bhuimali, Anil
Open Access
Planning of the sex-wise distribution of ocupations in our rural economics
(University of North Bengal, 2003) Bhowmik (Biswas), Manjari.; Sarkar, P. C.
The title of the dissertation is entitled "The Planning of the Sex-Wise Distribution of Occupations in Our Rural Economies" because we have felt that the target of sex-wise distribution of occupations in our rural economies can be realised if we initiate a system of reforms and there is a full-scale cooperation between the institutions of the rural economies and the state government on the one hand and the Central Government and IMP-World Bank system on the other for an amendment of globalisation for whole region of South Asia. P.C. Sarkar suggested in his book 'The Planning of Agriculture in India' ( 1966) an inter-area division of labour on the basis of specific land endowments of areas. One of the great resources of India lie in the infinite potential of Indian lands. The fact that land endowments are different in different areas does not diminish the infinite potential of all Indian lands. On the other hand, the differences in the land endowments of this vast country bestow on us an advantage of selecting a suitable lead sector in each area of common features of the land endowment. The selection of a lead sector does not mean that other products and services would not be produced. On the contrary, all sorts of products consistent with the land endowment need to be produced. As a result of planning of the type we suggest in this study, inputs and services for all products would be produced as far as the local land endowment permits and at the same time maximising the use of local resources. In such areas of common land endowment where the lead sector cannot be decided - . upon at the outset, the lead sector might be discovered iqsubsequent stages. Even in area where the natural land endowment points decidedly to a lead sector, all sorts of products and services which are consistent with the land endowment have got to be produced in the early stages to expand the income and buying power of the people. Eventually the development of lead sector will be the concern of the rural planning authorities of our conceptions and division of the use of land for raising of linkage products and services will be carried out. This innovative approach has been the basis of this research. Rostow, the author of the invaluable concept of take-off, mistook Indian exports of cotton textiles as an indication or completion of preparation of take-ofT His knowledge or imagination did not allow him to appreciate that even a steady growth of output per capita may disguise massive poverty, unemployment and underemployment in the countryside. For the purpose of this study 'w e have surveyed 600 households from the two blocks of Koch Bihar subdivision of the Koch Bihar district. We surveyed six villages from each of the two blocks. The level of irrigation in each of these two blocks is rather low. So we classify the gram panchayats into two classes. In the one class the level of irrigation is not so low and in the other it is low. We have taken three villages from each of these two classes of panchayats. Our definition of a village is different from the one found in a census district handbook of Koch Bihar. In the district of Koch Bihar the lay-out of the villages are different from that elsewhere. Here before the land reforms farmers always lived with their labourers. near their homes. After the land reforms also the system of layout has not changed. Knowing that all classes of land-owners, labourers and even nonagricultural people live side by side, we have taken a dense part of a gram panchayat and fixed a central point. Round this point with a radi~us of an equal number of households we take 50 households. These fifty households make up a village for us. After the innovative approach of inter-area division of labour, another innovation of this study is a measurement of expectation of life at different cohorts for males and females. It is found that women lost years of expectation at all cohorts in comparison to men. A fuller explanation has been available on the comparison of expectation functions both for males and females. For this purpose expectation of life at birth only has been used. Three sets of functions have been built up on the basis of three different regressors. Before using these three regressors, we tried many other regressors but they were not useful in explaining the difference in expectation of life at birth between males and females. The first useful regressor has been distance from subdivisional hospital. It has been found in the graph that as this distance increases the difference between males and females also increases. The second regressor is the number of families where every adult woman had at least two years of schooling. Here also as the number of such families declines the difference between males and females rises. The third regressor is the number of families with per capita income in the family below Rs. 3600. Here we find that as the number declines the difference between males and females rises. On full analysis we conclude that absolute or relative poverty is the cause of the missing women. Male and female ratio in employment has been studied before. Here also the general finding is that male-female ratio in employment is too high to give any reasonable scope to female employment. Yet a revealation here is that there is some tendency of females of relatively better off families getting increasing share of services and professions than hitherto. Yet another pioneering innovation of this study is the methodical building up . of the male female ratio in domestic chores. The domestic chores of the whole of th~ reference year are divided into three kinds. To be fit for domestic chores, males and females must be 10 years and above. If we include all of three kinds of domestic. chores, the male female ratio is 0.39 for the group 15 years and above. But this ratio for the age group 10-15 years is a little higher, namely, 0.68. Even though on total male-female ratio on domestic chores is too low, the male-female ratio on the second kind of domestic chores is 2.89 because these chores involve going away from domestic boundaries. Another pioneering innovation of this study is that we have surveyed the opinion of women of all the 600 households. We find that 815 women fearlessly express their need of employment. These women and 22 males have had no chance for employment even for a day in the reference year. On the other hand, taking just 150 days of employment as full employment, the number of persons who were not fully employed in this terms were converted into fully employed person-years. There are 303 men and 7 women. Thus the net additional demand for full employment to calculated to be 1680 person-year. Another innovation is the construction of a modified Chenery variation of Tableau Economique. The input co-efficients thus derived help us understand the selectiont of new activities, outputs and employment being directed by new institutions of planning authorities in the f()rn1 of Raiffeisen cooperatives and their smaller and bigger associations. They make up new private sector institutions that will need cooperation of the government which will i~turn assure cooperation between the Rai tTeisens and autonomous business houses.
Open Access
Impact of electricity generation and its absorption on a predominantly agraian economy - a case study of irrigation systems in Cooch Behar district
(University of North Bengal, 1993) Ray, Arindam; Sankrityayana, Jeta
Open Access
Food security and poverty : a case study of tea gardens in North Bengal
(University of North Bengal, 2023) Chakraborty, Abhijit; Roy Mukherjee, Sanchari
Food Security has attracted a lot of interest in the economic literature, especially in recent years1. One of the ways to measure poverty is food security. Since minimum calorie intake is a basis for measuring poverty. Food security on the other hand is defined as “Food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels is achieved when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’’2. Thus, if enough food is not available, we would call a certain population food insecure. On the other hand, out of the various measures of poverty the basic needs approach tries to identify the nutritional requirement as per person calorie requirement and then convert it into monetary terms to determine a poverty line(Atkinson 2019). The other method is the capability approach as proposed by Amartya Sen which tries to explain poverty in terms of basic capabilities or functioning. The basic needs approach is an old theory. The poverty literature also identifies the measurement issues under two broad heads one is the direct method and the other is the indirect method. The direct method takes into consideration the shortfall in minimum calorie requirement, whereas the indirect method takes into consideration the income required to satisfy the minimum calorie required3. The minimum calories required for basic sustenance are used as a method for determining poverty lines in many countries4. There is also a vast literature which has tried to identify the relation between food security and poverty(Kakwani and Son 2016). The interest by economists in the hypothesis of calorie intake and its effect on income is central to the efficiency wage hypothesis, proposed by Leibenstein (Leibenstein 1957). The seminal work states that the efficiency of work depends on wages, which comes from nutrition (Dawson, Tiffin 1998) and thereby nutrition will play a major role in the country. Thus, we can claim there is a relationship between poverty and food security. In India, the poverty line is determined using the minimum calorie approach and therefore we state that people falling below a certain calorie norm are considered to be food insecure. The required dietary allowance or the recommended calorie at the poverty line is usually taken from the RDA proposed by ICMR. We use the direct method to determine the extent of poverty and thus food security in our surveyed population. The research hypothesis we propose are: Research Hypothesis • Poverty and food security are related, poverty leads to food insecurity and food insecurity leads to poverty. • Tea gardens of North Bengal exhibit marked regional disparities in terms of food security and poverty • PDS has helped to address the problems of Food Insecurity in the Tea Gardens of North Bengal. • Other determinants of Food Security show that there exists food insecurity in Tea Plantations Research Questions: • What is the present socio-economic status of the Tea Plantation workers in the selected gardens? • What is the role of the public distribution system in India in mitigating food security? • How has the PDS evolved in the tea gardens? • Is Poverty and Food Security related? • Are the people in Tea Gardens suffering from undernourishment? • What are the other determinants of Food Security? We use household-level data to test the hypothesis. We also determined the other factors that might affect food security. We find evidence that food security and poverty are indeed related. Results also show high incidence of undernutrition among the Tea plantations, which is a core indicator of food security. Our analysis suggests among the various determinants of food security, the most important are household size and education.
Open Access
The economics of pond fishery : a study of North Bengal region of West Bengal
(University of North Bengal, 2023) Agarwalla, Kishan; Majumdar, Tamash Ranjan
Fishing is one of the oldest avocations of man, older than even hunting and farming. In the beginning, man used his bare hands to collect/capture fish and other aquatic animals found along the shores of lakes, rivers, and seas. But, as time passed, many changes occurred in the mode and pattern of fishing. Planned fishing operations are believed to have come into force with the emergence of tribal units from family units. The evolution of fishing gears proceeded step by step from the capture of individual fish to catching them in bulk. Subsequently gears progressively larger in size and sophistication came to be introduced. Fish is considered to be exceptionally nutritious as it is rich in easily digestible animal protein for which there exists hardly any substitute. Nutritionists consider fish as a valuable and effective supplement to a high cereal diet. Empirical findings also attest that fish consumption can reduce disability and the incidence of heart diseases (Sen Gupta, 1984). Fishing characteristically enjoys some added advantages over agriculture. As an economic activity, fishing is quick yielding as compared to agriculture, since the former involves a lesser time lag between efforts and results. In the case of most agricultural crops, it takes at least three months to reap the harvest after sowing. By contrast, in fishing output is instantaneous with effort. Further fishing resources unlike agriculture are renewable and replenishable year by year, which therefore forms a self-sustaining "fund" of resources that can be harvested continuously within maximum limits of exploitation (James, 1972). Productivity is also found to be appreciably higher in fishing when compared to agriculture or animal husbandry. As an industry with wide backward and forward linkages, the employment and income generation potential of fisheries has increased unprecedently in recent decades. Technological innovations in fishing, processing, and marketing have given rise to a host of subsidiary occupations related to boat building, net making, fish processing so on; all these leading to industrial diversification and further strengthening of the economy. In recent times, of all, what has particularly enhanced the economic importance of fisheries is its potential in earning foreign exchange. The fishing sector occupies an important place in West Bengal’s economy as a source of cheap but nutritious food, means of livelihood for thousands of the poor, and an important source of foreign exchange earnings. West Bengal ranks as the second-largest fish producer state in the country after Andhra Pradesh. The state also has the distinction of being a pioneer state in India in terms of fish seed production. The fisheries in West Bengal are comprised of both marine and inland fisheries. However, the state is well known for inland fisheries being made up of freshwater as well as brackish water fisheries. Despite having uninterrupted growth of inland fisheries over the years, there is a gross imbalance between the supply and demand of fish to a considerable extent within the state. The shortfall of supply relative to demand is made up by the import of fish from other states, especially from Andhra Pradesh. This necessitates developing and extending fisheries' economic activities in different directions and locations to increase production further to mitigate the shortfall. In the state, about 78% of the fish caught is sold as fresh or chilled food for the population and inland landing centers. About 6% of the catch is used for drying and curing, 13% to produce frozen fish, and 4% to reduce the yield into fish meals. In the wake of changing lifestyles, valueadded fishery products of different descriptions as convenience food are also gaining popularity in the markets. So it can be said that the fishery sector has an important role in the development of the state’s economy. The fisheries sector constitutes an important component of the regional rural economy of North Bengal. As the fishery resource can re-generate itself naturally in a time frame that is relevant for human exploitation, its commercial production and harvesting can provide massive scope for regional economic development on a sustainable basis. The development of the fisheries' economic activities in different directions can lead to income and employment generation for the rural population on a significant scale. The North Bengal fishery is mainly comprised of inland fishery resources - the pond fisheries are the more dominating form among all of them. The region is rich in water resources. The total water area available for the fishery sector is at present 41752 hectares. The fishery sector of the region registered 199277 metric tons of fish production in 2017-18, which is 12.8 percent of the total fish production in West Bengal during this period. The Fish production in North Bengal has grown moderately well from 1443 metric tons in 2010-11 to 1742 metric tons in 2017-18. This is perhaps due to the expansion of the area under the pond. The fishery sector of the region has also been undergoing a steady transformation from traditional fishing activity to commercial activity over the years. Despite these facts, the level of production and productivity are far from adequate, leaving a large gap between actual and potential output. The region is yet to tap the vast growth potentials of the production of fish, mainly from pisciculture. Also, the fish marketing system in North Bengal has been discussed here. This study has been conducted here to assess the market efficiencies indicators such as gross marketing margin (GMM) and percentage share of fishermen in the consumer rupee (PSFCR) among other indicators. The highest price spread is supposed to be observed in the longest marketing channel due to the involvement of the highest number of marketing intermediaries. In our sample, Darjeeling has a higher price spread when compared to other districts for most of the species. Thus, the marketing efficiency in terms of GMM is relatively lower in Darjeeling in comparison to other districts of North Bengal. Besides GMM, the percentage share of fishermen in the consumer rupee (PSFCR) has been calculated for the different species at the district level with the objective to make an assessment of the level of marketing efficiency across the districts. Efficiency in production is a way to ensure that the products of firms are produced in the best and most profitable way. To prevent the wastage of resources, efficiency is of great importance for every sector of the economy. The study is to examine the technical efficiency of pond fishery using the stochastic frontier model in the northern region of West Bengal. The estimated stochastic frontier model reveals that investment in labour, organic fertilizers, fish fingerling, and land area can increase the return from fish production. The result shows that technical efficiency ranges from 83 to 100 percent with a mean efficiency of 94 percent implying that average fish farmers in the study area are performing below the maximum possible production level by a shortfall of about 6 percent. The study recommends that the use of labour and organic fertilizers (i.e. cow dung) should be made available, to transform traditional rearing practices into more productive scientific methods. Also, the land area should be extended and more fish fingerling should be used to increase the production of fish in the study area. Aquaculture needs to be integrated with agriculture, piggery, duckery, etc. Nowadays, pisciculture activity is mixed with piggery or duckery activity for better viability of the pisciculture scheme. The product of the piggery or poultry may be utilized for manuring the water of the ponds or tanks. These will provide basic nutrients to the water, which also helps in maintaining the food chain of the fish. No extra expenditure for manure or supplementary feed will be required. In this study, the level of technical efficiency of the pond fishery in North Bengal has been estimated using the CCR and BCC DEA models. In the Uttar Dinajpur district, the minimum and maximum TE scores were estimated as 37.50 percent and 100 percent, respectively. On average, the TE score of the sample fish farmers in this district was estimated at 85 percent
Open Access
Finances of Panchayats in North Bengal : a study of Jalpaiguri district (1974-77)
(University of North Bengal, 1983) Bandyopadhyay, Nandadulal; Bhattacharya, S. N.
Open Access
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) and Self Helf Groups (SHGs) linkages : A study on the role of some selected Self Helf Groups of Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal
(University of North Bengal, 2023) Aich Sarkar, Manik; Bagchi, Kanak Kanti
Open Access
Impact of electricity generation and its absorption on a predominantly agraian economy - a case study of irrigation systems in Cooch Behar district
(University of North Bengal, 1993) Ray, Arindam; Sankrityayana, Jeta
Open Access
Indo-saarc trade: problems and prospects In the context of globalization (1985-2018)
(University of North Bengal, 2022) Das, Dilip Kumar; Mukhopadhyay, Deb Kumar

Department of Economics

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