Performance Budgeting for Planned Development

Viewing “budgeting” as a total management system, the book highlights the importance of the budget as an effective instrument of planned development and suggests the various ways in which the planning and implementation of public expenditure programmes could be improved to achieve developmental goals. This interdisciplinary study meaningfully combines the concepts and techniques of public administration, management, economics, and accountancy and critically assesses the relevance and use of cost- benefit analysis in the Indian setting , It points out the drawbacks of the mechanics and use of techniques like discounted cash flow , internal rate of return, and shadow prices and suggests a criterion called Value Added to Capital Employed (VACE) for the selection of public investment programmes.

After analysing the various factors responsible for the limited Success achieved by Indian planning since Independence, the author advocates a “disaggregated” and decentralized approach to planning, one that would be more democratic and which would call for participation at every level with a view to specifying the goals and objectives. He argues that greater attention should be paid to the complementarity of different instruments of public policy like credit , taxation , and public expenditure, The work emphasizes the need for a more systematic demarcation of the various Governmental departments and agencies in each sector of development so that a purposeful evaluation of Plan programmes and their implementation might be possible. It also discusses the relevance of the Gandhian concept of antyodaya to contemporary Indian conditions.

This lucid study should prove to be of considerable use to administrators, management personnel, scholars and students of management and economics.

India 1981-86: A Forecast on Economic, Political and Social Developments

THIS BOOK outlines time-specific predictive inferences regarding state of the nation from 1981 to 1986 A .D. Short-term future profiles of the country are explored through a set of six scenarios. They comprise a probable path, energy crisis, drought, increased politico-military pressure, multiple crises situation and a vision of optimism. The state of the nation is depicted in terms of politico-military pressure, administrative effectiveness, economic growth, price rise, unemployment, public unrest, internal ethnic tensions, total pressure on government, political stability, mass-standing of ruling leadership and expectations of society. The work aims at alerting the nation to impending perils in the near future as a consequence of external stresses and internal strains. The discussion of the subject mailer has been kept at a non-technical level throughout in order to make the work accessible to intelligent lay readers.

Towards New Horizons in Agricultural Production: 2000 A.D

Will Indian agriculture in year 2000 A.D. enter an era of prosperity or it will force unprecedented crises of scarcity, famine and squalor? The book examines this question dispassionately. It has a message of hope, based on potential created by newly generated technology. New technology and rapid expansion of irrigation will be the paths for agricultural development in the next two decades.

The task is not simple. The book has developed seven scenarios, the usual tool of futurology. The lessons of the scenarios are vivid and clear. The tempo of growth has to be accelerated, such acceleration will require extensive investment in irrigation and fertiliser manufacturing, four or five green revolutions of the type witnessed in the early seventies and new breakthroughs in rice, pulses and oilseeds in the next 20 years. Then there would be enough food to meet nutritional norms or economic demand.

The hope the future holds in deploying greater resources and in sustained research will cover mostly crops. Side effect, not so pleasant, could be fodder scarcity and protein shortage. There could be uncertainty regarding full employment.

Irrigation potential is unevenly spread over states. Realising the full potential of irrigation would inevitably mean uneven growth prospects for states. The north and east could progress faster and the west, central and south may trail behind. Since agricultural resources are non-transferable, a new set of problems may arise. Rapid transfer of people over regions and more so into other occupations from slow growth regions have to be visualised and planned.

The book has a message for policy makers, hope for people and useful insights for scholars.

C H Shah was associated with the University of Bombay since 1945 till his retirement in 1980. He was Professor of Agricultural Economics when he retired. He had his Ph.D. from University of Bombay and post-Ph .D training at University of Chicago. He visited East-West Center, Honolulu as a Senior Specialist and spent recently a year at Harvard. He is currently an Honorary Visiting Professor at Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research, Ahmedabad and an Honorary Faculty Member at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. In 1979 he presided over the 39th Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics. His recent works include an edited volume on “Development of Indian Agriculture: Policy and Problems.” Over a long period he has worked on various aspects of agriculture, ranging from land reforms to nutrition, poverty, investment, finance, production and marketing. He has authored jointly or individually several books, reports and articles.

S D Sawant has a research career stretching over 15 years. She obtained her Ph.D from University of Bombay on ‘Aggregate Supply Function in Agriculture’ which is now available in print. She is a Senior Research Officer in the Development and Planning Section of the University of Bombay. Her recent works include besides her thesis, an independent research on pulses and economic problem of women labour in agriculture; over years she is engaged in the study of different aspects of agriculture like land reforms, production, irrigation, elasticity of substitution etc. She teaches agricultural economics to students at the post graduate level.

Citizen Participation in Rural Development

Emergence of new nation-states, following liquidation of colonial rule after the Second World War has unleashed social forces which militate against centuries old traditions of subjugation and strive to build a social order based on freedom, equality and justice. This has meant a substantial change in the nature of relationships between society and the state. People who were subjects till recently, in the countries of Asia and Africa which recently got their independence, acquired the status of citizens and emerged as a new force asserting their power to influence their own destiny. A new institutional framework had to be developed to involve the people in the process of development. What is the nature and extent of involvement of the people, in India, particularly in the institutions of Community Development and Panchayati Raj? The present study attempts to examine the nature and extent of this participation in the process of development in two different regions of India.

A number of studies have been done to evaluate this process of participation. What distinguishes the present effort is its attempt to examine this process in a historical perspective which provides insights into the forces and factors that have shaped the course of development in different socio-cultural contexts.

Changing Political Representation in India

The Lok Sabha is perhaps the best mirror of the changing political configuration in India. As the elected Lower House of the Indian Parliament. It immediately reflects the type of changes which are emerging in the Indian body polity.

The study examines the basic nature of the emerging representation in the Lok Sabha, especially in the ruling party, with respect to the age composition, representation of women, the legislative experience, the educational level and most important of all the occupational background of the Members of Lok Sabha. The study looks at the data at the State level also giving a disaggregated picture.

The study is confined to the First, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Lok Sabha. Its conclusions are of basic interest to the students of the Indian politics and political development.

Metropolitan Management: The Asian Experience

This is a study of the management problems experienced by selected metropolitan cities in South and East Asia and of the approaches adopted in resolving them. Although the region contains many of the world’s developing countries, it is not an exception to the universal trends in urbanization, which have had a massive impact on its metropolitan cities. Apart from Tokyo, the cities concerned tend to dominate the economic and political scene in their respective countries, but for the purposes of this discussion it is not inappropriate to refer to them and the problems they face as being broadly metropolitan. Urban geographers and planners now tend to use the term ‘metropolitan’ to refer to a large identifiable area of continuous urbanization consisting of several administrative jurisdictions. Demographers today often classify cities with populations of more than one million people as metropolitan, and in common usage the term is widely employed to symbolize social, economic, and political status. All of these characteristics apply to the cities studied here.

Regulation and Development: The Indian Policy Experience of Controls over Industry

The non-agricultural sector of the Indian economy already accounts for two-third of the nation’s GDP. The processes of liberalisatoin which were initiated in the late 1970s, in which Prof. Marathe played an important role as Secretary, Industrial Development, Government of India, were given considerable boost by the Rajiv Gandhi Government in 1985.

Social Change and Violence: The Indian Experience

This study is the second in the series on violence by Shri P R Rajgopal. As a distinguished police official, Shri Rajgopal has seen the various faces of violence at first hand In the present study, he has examined the variety of socio- economic factors which lead to violence Policy makers as well as lay citizens will find his practical insights useful in understanding the phenomenon.

Sardar Patel and the Indian Administration

This book documents Shri L P Singh’s lecture, delivered at the South Gujarat University in Surat 1986. It is a useful input in assuming both the role played by Sardar Patel and the evolution of the modern Indian state.

L P Singh emphasizes that Sardar Vallabhai Patel played a crucial role in creating the post-independence nation in the precarious situation after the departure of the British. Even though his governmental tenure in Delhi was a relatively short one, he is considered one of the key architects of this phase. This interpretation of Sardar Patel’s role covered in this brief lecture points to the emergence of the administrative state in India. The strength and weakness of the Indian States have been of some debate in recent years and perhaps the debate will occupy more space as the adequacies and inadequacies of the state in India begin to affect our national growth and performance.

Mr. Singh describes Sardar Patel as “the greatest statesman-administrator of Independent India” and “ranks him with Ashoka and Akbar, as a unifier of the country”.

L P Singh, a Founder Member of the CPR was a former Home Secretary and former Governor of Assam and the North East.