Teaching is Learning

Income poverty is measured in terms of people living below poverty line (BPL). Planning commission releases revised poverty line for the states and the country and also an estimate of poverty in terms of people living below poverty line, at regular intervals. Income Poverty can be defined as deprivation of minimum level of income or consumption expenditure; the poverty line – which is state specific – was earlier being calculated as level of calorie consumption. However, since last few years, multi-dimensional poverty index is being calculated based on Tendulkar Committee recommendations. This new poverty lines have been arrived at after assessing the adequacy of private household expenditure on education and health, something that the earlier calorie‐anchored poverty lines did not explicitly account for. The same committee constructed poverty estimates for 1993-94 and 2004-05. Recently similar estimates were also published for 2009-10. Gujarat has fared very well in overall poverty re...

In the hindsight of previous election in Gujarat, there came an RTI based revelatio n that indicated that  he state had witnessed nearly 500 cases of farmer suicides and more than 6000 accidental deaths of farmers since 2003. Five years later, similar news item indicates 39th farmer suicide in 2012 alone!! As seen in my previous blog, reducing labour productivity in agriculture sector can stre ss, especially small farmers. Below is statistics on suicides of farmers, as per national crime bureau statistics over last 10 years. Statistics on Farmer suicides (Source: National Crime Bureau 2001-2011 databases) Interestingly, 2007 - the year win which previous assembl y election  was held - had a dip in this statistics! Overall, there had been a trend of 500-600 farmer suicides in Gujarat over last 10 years or so. Many a times, a sui ci d e , especially among farmers, is not reported as suicide and tend to be reported as unnatural accidental death. In rural deaths like that of ...

NSSO 59th round survey reports that nearly 52% of surveyed farmer households – amounting to nearly 2 million - were indebted in Gujarat; with higher proportion than national average (49%) its stood 8th worst performer. An average amount for outstanding loan was found to be Rs. 15526, which was also higher than the national average of Rs. 12585. Overall, 70.6% of loans were found to be taken for productive reasons (State ranked 2 nd ). However, situation is worst for small land-holders. Small land holders tend to take higher share of loans for non-productive purposes like consumption, marriage, education and medical reasons. The small landholders, owning less than one hectare of land, comprises nearly half of the total surveyed farmers.   For relatively poorer household, these kinds of non-productive loans could be of serious implications, since the borrowed money is not being put for productive purposes, with possibility of returns.   To complete the picture of indebtedness, i...