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Working Papers | 2004

Macroeconomic Framework for Development in Gujarat

Ravindra H. Dholakia

The paper begins by discussing need for developing a regional accounting framework and estimating relevant variables to formulate realistic growth targets and appropriate development strategy in the reform era for the Gujarat State as a case. The study then examines growth experience in various sectors of the state and derives growth potential of the economy in medium and long term. Elementary regional accounting framework and estimates of crucial macroeconomic aggregates at the state level in India are attempted for the first time for Gujarat to derive implications on resource availability and investment requirement to achieve alternative growth targets. The study finds that Gujarat is a high saving society comparable to China and Korea, but invests much less domestically. Although it a net importer internationally, it is a major net exporter within the country. The paper also attempts to identify the prime movers or principal drivers of the economic growth in the state by fitting a simultaneous equations model on the recent time series data on Gujarat. Electricity, gas & water supply; storage & communications; construction; real estates and rainfall are the prime movers in Gujarat. The paper also examines the social and human development aspects and explores how they can be integrated with the macroeconomic growth model in Gujarat. The paper concludes by discussing strategic policy interventions to achieve the development goals of the state.

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Working Papers | 2004

Financial Status of Rural Poor: A Study in Udaipur District

Parhi Smita and Sriram M S

The paper discusses the findings of a primary survey carried out in one village in Udaipur District of Rajasthan. The objectives of the study were to understand the financial flows of the rural poor and to have an insight into their financial status. Data was collected from 36 households classified as below-poverty-line on various aspects through a questionnaire. The findings indicate that the overall levels of indebtedness of these poor families are not alarming, as they have sufficient assets. The poor borrow from various sources to meet their needs. The most striking finding was that the poor resort to borrowing from the local money lender even for asset purchase, while they stash away their savings in earthen pots. Both these indicate the failure of the financial institutions in capitalizing on a small market opportunity. Most of the borrowings particularly for social consumption come from relatives-the poor seem to be juggling around with loans that cost heavily along with some interest free informal loans to manage their liquidity. The findings also support the possibility of differential pricing of loan products using social controls on end use monitoring-this is evidenced by the controls exercised by relatives in funding social consumption beyond certain limits. On the savings it was possible to conclude that the poor look for security more than liquidity and returns as an attribute. This study re-confirms the earlier findings that health related expenses are one of the major causes of indebtedness amongst the poor.

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Working Papers | 2004

Human resource issues and its implications for health sector reforms

Bhat Ramesh and Sunil Kumar Maheshwari

Given the growing complexities and challenges the health sector faces, reforms in this sector are inevitable. Often health sector reforms aimed to address many of these deficiencies and ensuring effectiveness and efficiency of resource use, they focus on making the health systems responsive through strengthening financial systems, ensuring local participation and public private partnerships, and autonomy of health facilities. The reform process, among other things, intrinsically makes some fundamental assumptions some of which are as follows: high organisational commitment of health care providers, high professional commitment of health care providers, and adequate skills of health care providers. This paper examines the commitment of district level health officials in the newly carved out state of Chhattisgarh in India. Since development oriented HR practices (HRD) are powerful tools to commit people working in health sector to enhance the quality of care, we believe that health sector reforms will have to concentrate on human resource issues and practices more than ever before in near future. The papers attempts to examine the following questions: (i) what is status of professional commitment, organisational commitment and technical competencies of health officials? (ii) what are the characteristics of human resource management practices in the health sector in the state? and (iii) how these management practices are linked with professional and organisational commitment? Finally the paper discusses the implications of these to health sector reform process.

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Working Papers | 2004

Microfinance and the State: Exploring areas and structures of collaboration

Sriram M S

This paper examines the role of state in reaching out financial services to the poor in India. The current players in reaching these services include the formal banks and co-operatives. In addition, there are several voluntary efforts that are being undertaken to ensure that financial services reach the unbanked. The paper then examines the role of the state. The role of the state is seen in three segments-direct, participatory and regulatory aspects. The paper argues that the present structuring of aid to poor and to the rural areas need to be relooked. It argues under its direct role it should put in generalized aid that goes towards aspects that affect the population at large-like creating infrastructure, providing information and access to markets. On the partnerships, the paper argues that all aid aimed at reaching individuals has to be routed through partner institutions which take up assessments on a professional basis, so that the relationship built with these institutions continue much beyond the one time dispensation of aid. It argues that this would minimize patronage dispensation by parties who are not a part of the implementing agency. Based on the current scan of the players in the market that serve the poor, the paper also suggests regulatory interventions at the policy level.

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Working Papers | 2004

Liberalisation and Law on Comparative advertising in India

Akhileshwar Pathak

With the liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian economy, as could be expected, firms have been aggressively and vigorously promoting their products and services. These practices raise questions about truthfulness and fairness of representation of products and services. Not only the consumers but even the firms need adequate law against unfair trade practices to have some 'rules of the game' for competing among themselves. In a competitive environment, every representation of a product or service, is about what 'others are not'. This paper reviews the law in India on representations (advertisements) which have an element of comparison. The provisions on this aspect formed a part of the Unfair Trade Practices under the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act. In the changing context of proliferation of advertisements, the law needed to be further strengthened in its application. To the contrary, even the existing law has been liquidated with the repeal of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act. It has been suggested that the same protection against unfair trade practices have been available under the Consumer Protection Act. Thus, the repeal of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act would not be of any significance. However, within the structure of the Consumer Protection Act, competing firms cannot be 'consumers' to approach a consumer forum. The paper illustrates that the opening up of the economy, on its own, is not going to create and sustain competition. Appropriate law, adequate enforcement, infrastructure and quick dispute settlement mechanism would be needed to sustain competition.

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Working Papers | 2004

Fourier Representation of Climatic Data of Kothara-Kutch

T. Madhavan and Girja Sharan

Fourier series representations of some climatic variables were developed using data from the site of an experimental greenhouse at Kothara (Kutch). Hourly data was averaged over a month to yield a profile of an average day of that month. That was put through harmonic analysis to determine Fourier coefficients . Analytical expressions would be useful to those working on modelling.

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Working Papers | 2003

Law, Liberalisation and Globalisation in India: Just a Game of Chance?

Akhileshwar Pathak

This paper is a part of a larger research on the working of business law in India in the changing context of globalisation and liberalisation. The macro theme requires details of the changes in law, economy and business in different fields. However, as the changes in the economy were in a nascent stage, the details were yet to emerge. Now, after a decade of reforms, changes in different fields are beginning to be discernible. Towards creating a corpus on the working of law in its micro details, this paper takes up the law on holding of games, contests and lotteries for promotion of products and services. With liberalisation, as entry into production and services is no more a barrier, firms have got into aggressive and competitive trade practices to entice the customers. This has included proliferation of games, contests, lotteries and similar promotional schemes. The paper explores the working of the provision on the subject, contained in the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, and finds out that while the business practices in the post-liberalisation-globalisation period required better regulation, the interpretation of the law by the courts has made the law non-existent.

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Working Papers | 2003

Distribution of Cross-Section of Price Changes and Measurement of Inflation

Vineet Virmani

In this study we look at the statistical properties of components forming the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), the headline inflation index for the Indian economy. We find that not only is the distribution of price changes at the disaggregate level highly leptokurtic, but also the cross-sectional distribution of price changes is positively skewed. This has the implication that the weighted mean would fail to be an efficient estimator of inflation. Trimmed Means, belonging to the class of limited influence estimators, have been used by many central banks to get around the skewness problem. We also explore the use of trimmed means for efficiently estimating inflation for India. In particular, we study the robustness of trimmed means to the benchmark (Centered Moving Average vs. trends derived from the Hodrick Prescott Filter) and the evaluation criteria (Mean Absolute Deviation vs. Root Mean Square Error vs. an Asymmetric Loss Function). Although we study the performance of trimmed means against the weighted mean in some detail, we stop short of proposing any 'one' trimming pattern as the ideal. The selection of the headline inflation rate depends as much on its ability to track the underlying trend void of transitory disturbances as much on its ability to forecast future inflation and its correlation with money growth, something we don't deal with in the present study.

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Working Papers | 2003

Physical Characteristics of Some Vegetables Grown in Ahmedabad Region

Girja Sharan and Kishor Rawale

Physical dimensions, mass, shape and bulk density of vegetables grown around Ahmedabad have been determined. Measurements were carried out on samples at the farm immediately after harvest. Pattern underlying one of the characteristic dimensions has been identified. Statistical distribution that best described the pattern in all cases was found to be two parameter Weibull. Use of cluster analysis was illustrated in case of okra to determine the number of relatively homogenous groups into which the produce can be separated. Results may be useful to those working on unit technology and technology systems for fresh produce.

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Working Papers | 2003

Multiple products, multiple constraints, single period inventory problem: A Hierarchical solution procedure

Kumar Satyendra, V. Venkata Rao, and Tirupati Devanath

This paper presents the formulation and a hierarchical solution procedure of multiple products, multiple constraints, single period inventory problem. The hierarchical procedure decomposes the problem into a number of sub-problems equal to the number of constraints sets. Each sub-problem is solved optimally by applying Lagrange multipliers and satisfying Kuhn-Tucker conditions. The experimental results show that the hierarchical procedure performs well even when there are large a number of products and constraints.

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