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2757 items in total found

Working Papers | 1986

Sources of Economic Growth in India Implied by the Seventh Five Year Plan 1985-90

Ravindra H. Dholakia

Working Papers | 1986

On Estimating Home Workers in India

Ravindra H. Dholakia

Although home-working is a phenomenon prevalent in almost all societies, it sometimes takes disturbing form especially in the labour surplus countries of the third world. It is artued that from the viewpoint of social justice, we must be concerned about sucha category of workers who are de jure self-employed workers but de facto employees at the mercy of their employers who only take advantage of the situation and shrug-off all responsibility as employers. In order to assess the magnitude of the problem, some broad measurement of the dimensions is necessary. In the present paper, a conceptual framework is presented to categorize home-workers into various groups and sub-groups having somewhat homogeneous conditions. Finally, first approximations are attempted about the magnitude of workers in different categories and sub-categories of Home-Working based on 1981 Census data.

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Working Papers | 1986

Interregional Variation in the Access of Females to the Working Force in India, 1981

Ravindra H. Dholakia and Patel Premji M

In the present paper, we make an attempt to examine the interstate variation in the proportion of females in the total working force in India during a given bench-mark year 1981. The exercise is expected to provide interesting insights into the nature of labour markets and some structural forces operating in various state economies in India. The main finding of the paper is that sex-discriminating aspects of rural technology in general and in the agricultural sector in particular are the major determinants of interstate variation in the access of females to the working force and hence in their relative contribution to the state domestic product.

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Working Papers | 1986

Expected Performance in Human/Computer Applications as a Function of User Proficiency and Systems Power

Norman Kent L and Singh Ramadhar

Managers and students of management in India predicted performance in human/computer system from information about the user's proficiency with computers and the power of the system. User proficiency was defined as the user's ability to work with computers; and system power was defined as the computer's ability to store, retrieve, and analyze data. Five different models were proposed for how used proficiency and system power are expected to determine performance. These were (a) a matching model in which optimal performance is achieved when the power of the system is judged to be compatible with the proficiency of the user, (b) an averaging model in which expected performance is the average of the values of user proficiency and system power, (c) a multiplying model in which performance is the product of the values of user proficiency and system power, (d) a human/computer ratio model in which performance is determined by the ratio of system power over total effort, and (e) a computer/human ratio model in which performance is determined by the ratio of user proficiency over total effort. Participants rated 16 combinations of user proficiency and system power from a 4 x 4 factorial design. The pattern of ratings indicated that 51 percent used a multiplying model and 25 percent used an averaging model; whereas, only 6 percent used the matching model and 4 percent used a ratio model. The remaining 14 percent did not follow any model clearly. Implications of these results were discussed for the design of the human/computer interface, training and selection of users, and the cost-benefit trade-offs for investment in user training versus equipment acquisition.

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Working Papers | 1986

Transfer of Technology to India: The Case of Indo-FRG Industrial Cooperation

Chaudhari Shekhar

Foreign collaborations have played in important role in the building up of the industrial infrastructure in the country. In fact, it has increased considerably during the last few years with the gradual liberalization of governmental policies towards industry. In this study the author has i) described broadly the major sources of foreign technology over the years; ii) highlighted the changing patterns in the number and nature of foreign collaboration agreements; iii) and described the role of Indo-F.R.G. industrial co-operation. The paper also discusses briefly the factors that are likely to influence Indo-FRG industrial cooperation and raises same issues for further research.

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Working Papers | 1986

A Study of the Problem of Improving the Utilization of the Non-Suburban Passenger Fleet in Indian Railways

G. Raghuram

This paper studies the problem of improving the utilization of the non-suburban passenger fleet of the Indian Railways. The constant growth of the non-suburban passenger traffic outstrips the additions provided to the fleet, which any way is an expensive proposition. The improvement in utilization is sought to be effected by using the fleet more often for the desired services. The paper identifies three constraints that influence the utilization : (i) composition requirements (ii) maintenance requirements and (iii) traffic delays. The need to standardize the composition of services and provide proper maintenance norms is highlighted. A methodology is proposed using OR techniques to evaluate current solutions and improve the same to optimality. A framework is suggested for analysing the implementability of the solutions. The paper also demonstrates a methodology to exploit the fact that there are usually a large number of optimal solutions. This involves using a secondary objective function to select a preferred solution.

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Working Papers | 1986

Monitoring the Government Policy Environment

M. R. Dixit

Recent favourable and unfavourable changes in the government policies have prompted many corporations to review their corporate strategies. This has pointed to the need for monitoring the government policy environment formally and systematically. This paper discusses the types of influences the government policies can have on the corporate strategy of a corporation and the various steps in developing an in house system for monitoring the government policy environment. It presents the findings of a study aimed at understanding the monitoring practice of large corporations and illustrates how a large diversified company monitors the evens centering around the announcement of the annual budget of the Central Government.

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Working Papers | 1986

Policies for Growth in Fertilizer Consumption: The Next Stage

Desai G M

Annual consumption of fertilizers has increased from less than 100,000 metric tons of nutrients in the early 1950s to 8.2 million metric tons (mmts) by 1984/85. The Seventh Five Year Plan aims at raising it to 14 mmts by 1989/90. The task of accelerating growth in fertilizer consumption extends beyond the Seventh Plan period because virtually all further growth in crop production will have to come from continuous increases in yields and all proven yield-increasing technologies depend on high levels of fertilizer application. Thus the real question concerning the future is not whether but how to accelerate growth in fertilizer us and ensure its maximum effectiveness in crop production. This paper discusses the above question by examining the past experience within a heuristic framework. The single most important conclusion of the paper is as follows: Because of the constraints on lowering prices of fertilizers and also on raising support prices of crops, non-price policies will be more crucial than ever before in determining the pace of future growth in fertilizer consumption. This, however, is no ground for pessimism about acceleration in future growth of fertilizer consumption or defeatist attitude in evolving policies required for the purpose. Under the present price environment, there is a vast scope to accelerate growth in fertilizer consumption through non-price policies which improve efficiency of fertilizer use, shift response functions up wards, and remove deficiencies in agricultural research, extension, and credit as well as fertilizer supply and distinction system.

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Working Papers | 1986

National Demand and Regional Industralization

Ravindra H. Dholakia

Interstate disparity in the industrial output has been increasing in India in spite of our planned efforts to reduce the same. Out policies in this regard were based on the growth theories emphasising the role of factor supplies, particularly investment. It is argued here that such an approach is most likely to lead to the wastage of scarce national resources in the sense of sacrificing growth without reducing the disparities. Indian data seem to support demand oriented theories which suggest quite different planning and policy measures to tackle the problem.

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Working Papers | 1986

On Regionalizing a National Inter-Industry table

Nanda K. Choudhry and Ravindra H. Dholakia

In this paper we have proposed and evaluated a new non-survey method whereby a national input-output coefficient matrix may be decomposed into a set of regional input-output coefficients matrices. The method is based on the technique of generalised inverse. It obeys certain restrictions that have intuitive plausibility. To evaluate the method proposed here, the Canadian national and regional data for the year 1974 have been used. Dalvi and Prasand (1981, 1982) demonstrated that their method of using the Moore Penrose generalised inverse to regionalise the national table was found more efficient than the popular RAS method. We demonstrate in this paper that the method proposed by us here is more satisfactory than the one proposed by Dalvi and Prasad both in terms of its economic implications as well as its empirical performance.

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