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2757 items in total found

Working Papers | 1977

Fertilizers in India Agricultural Development, Problems and Policies

Desai G M

The importance of fertilizer in agricultural production has increased substantially in the last 25 years. The current level of its use, however, is insufficient to arrest depletion of soil fertility. Under our circumstances the use of organic manures alone will not suffice to arrest this process. Thus, there is no alternative to continuously raising levels of fertilizer use, more so because further growth in agricultural production critically depends on intensive cultivation of land. Neither the past record of achieving the planned targets of fertilizer use, nor the trends in the growth of fertilizer consumption could be relied upon to attain even the scaled-down levels of fertilizer was laid down in the Fifth Five Year Plan. To attain these levels, for instance, fertilizer use must grow by over 600,000 tonnes every year upto 1983-84. Against this, in the first half of this decade it increased by only 68,000 tonnes a year. Thus the task of generating the requisite acceleration in the trends of fertilizer consumption is by any standard stupendous. Clearly, marginal manipulations of the price environment and other ad hoc measures do not size up to this task. What is required are vigorous policies based on the correct understanding of the forces which have governed the past growth in the use of this input. Past research provides valuable insights into some of the major aspects of the problem of increasing fertilizer use. These insights are brought together in this paper to highlight the nature of the problem. It also points out why the past policies which emphasized the supply and distribution aspects will not suffice in the current context. Finally, the paper suggests a workable strategy to generate continuous rapid growth in demand for this input.

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Working Papers | 1977

The Impact of the New Rice Technology on Fertiliser Consumption

Desai G M

The above paper was prepared for the Conference on Economic Consequences of New Rice Technology organized by the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines during December 13-16, 1076. Section 1 of the paper summarizes the major conclusions of the resource paper on the subject by Dr. Christians David and Dr. Randolph Barker. Section 2 focuses on certain methodological issues and conclusions of the paper. It has been pointed out in the paper that while there was a substantial impact of the modern rice varieties on fertilizer consumption in the Asian rice economy, in certain situations, this impact was not so much through increase in the rates of fertilizer application due to upward shifts in the response functions. Instead it has been through accelerating diffusion of fertilizer use on rice. This conclusion follows from analysis of response functions as well as analysis of demand functions estimated from actual fertilizer consumption data. The paper also presents some data from India to support the major conclusion.

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Working Papers | 1977

A Study of the Image of Indian Journals on Management and Social Sciences in the International Academic Community

Dhawle A S and Ghose Amitabha

It is hypothesized that academic journals of noteworthy research content also have a high acceptance in the international academic community. Analysis of responses from the well known universities of the world reveals that Indian journals on social sciences except those on economics and industrial relations have a very poor acceptance outside India. This should give an impetus to social scientists to investigate whether Indian journals on social sciences excluding a few are really academically inferior.

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Working Papers | 1977

Survey on Exports and Future Export Plans of Large Indian Companies: 1970-75

Kulkarni G R and Srivastava Uma Kant

We conducted a survey on exports and future export plans of large Indian companies during 1970-75 with the following objectives in mind: i) to understand the extent of commitment on the part of large Indian manufacturing companies to exports over the period 1970-75; ii) to judge the quality of this commitment as an integral part of corporate strategies and iii) to look at the indicators, if any, of future plans for export development which these companies may have incorporated in their own plans for future growth. This opportunity was also used to ascertain from these companies their feelings on the strong and weak points in government policy towards exports and the extent to which the various policy measures were helping or hurting their attempts at securing a long term foothold for themselves in world markets. This paper presents the main findings of this survey. On the basis of the filled-in questionnaires received by us from 36 large companies we find that systematic planning for export development at unit level is virtually non-existent in India. We conclude this paper by advocating the case for drawing up select list of 'leading' units of high potential exports of selected knowledge-based and skill intensive and high value added manufactured product, who should be persuaded to formulate corporate export development plans. Adequate steps should be taken to secure a long term commitment of such units for the growth of exports of selected products. The government should provide all the necessary help to enable these units to successfully implement their plans within the framework of national policies. Such an approach would help to maximize the gains from planned development of exports.

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Working Papers | 1977

Determinants of Effective Working Capital Management - A Discriminant Analysis Approach

Bhattacharyya S K and Raghavacahari M

Currently, many financial analysts rely on traditional financial ratios for assessing the effectiveness of the working capital management. They correlate corporate performance in this area with the so-called "ideal" ratios. The present study sough to examine the validity of such practices and a. to identify a method of classifying those companies which manage their working capital more effectively than others; b. to determine the factors which lead to the effectiveness of working capital management process; c. to make recommendations for managers in this area. The primary method adopted for the study was the well known statistical tool-Multivariate Discriminant Analysis-based on computer processing of financial data obtained from the balance sheets of the 72 large Indian companies which participated in the study. This was supplemented by an analysis of the responses of these companies to a questionnaire relating to their managers' perceptions of the effectiveness of the working capital management process in their respective organizations. The discriminant analysis showed that the prime determinants of effectiveness of the working capital management, in order of relative importance, were: 1. Profit After Tax as a percentage of sales 2. Sales as number of times of total assets 3. Quick assets as a percentage of current liabilities 4. Receivables as number of days' sales This was in significant contrast to the current practice which emphasizes the organization's performance in relation to current ratio and debt-equity relationship. The authors recommend that the financial managers in the companies and the analysts in the financial institutions and commercial banks should pay more formal and explicit attention to these factors in their financial analysis. Also, they recommend that these variables should be reflected in the planning and information system of companies for keeping a track of the effectiveness of the working capital management.

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Working Papers | 1977

Integrated Rural Development Through Farmer Organization

Desai G M and Sambrani Shreekant

To accomplish integrated rural development, a substantial amount of energy is required for various activities. Electricity is, at present, perhaps the most efficient and convenient sources of this energy. Therefore, electrification of rural areas is an important precondition for their development in an integrated manner. On a prior grounds, cooperatives are ideals agencies for rural electrification. Therefore, in this paper, we have made an attempt to understand the problem of integrated rural development through farmers' organizations by doing a case study of a rural electricity cooperative in Western India. Part I brings out the area of congruence between programmes of rural electrification and integrated rural development. It also points out why electricity cooperatives are ideally suited for the task of rural electrification. Part II is a case study of a rural electricity cooperative located in western India. In part III we have made an attempt to draw some lessons from the case study for integrated rural development.

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Working Papers | 1977

Corporate Investment in 1977: A Forecast

C Rangarajan

There has been a substantial pick up in private corporate investment in 1976 as compared to 1975. Corporate investment in 1977 would be higher than that reached in 1976. It is likely to reach in nominal terms the level attained in 1974, which is the best year so far. However, in real terms the 1974 peak will not be reached. This study entailed an analysis of all the projects sanctioned by the all-India term lending institutions. Capital expenditures incurred on all projects sanctioned by these institutions amounted to Rs. 530 crores in 1975. But during 1976 these expenditures are likely to be Rs. 637 crores, thus indicating a pick up in corporate investment. Since as of now the capital expenditures likely to be incurred in 1977 are of the order of Rs. 512 crores there is every possibility that corporate investment in 1977 would exceed the level reached in 1976. It is, however, to be noted that a higher level of corporate investment in current prices does not indicate a rise in investment in real terms.

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Working Papers | 1977

Psychology of Poverty

Moulik T K

This paper is a critical review of researches in psychology of poverty in India. In spite of the fact that poverty remains to be the foremost problem of India, there seems to be a general negligence on the part of the Indian behavioral scientists in studying it with researcher's rigour. Poverty in India is typically a unique Indian problem deeply rooted into great traditions of Hinduism and Islam. The review clearly brings out how poverty in India is historically an accepted generalized phenomenon both socially and psychologically among the Indians. Academics, especially, the psychologists also become a victim of this historical process accepting poverty merely as a religious problem. After critically analyzing the historical perspective, the paper then reviews all the researches done on psychology of poverty in India until 1970. The review is basically concerned with the psychological response of that segment of India's population whose objective material deprivation condition is very close to or below the survival level. Whatever few studies done in this line, these have shown that the condition of poverty have direct or indirect bearings on motivations and aspirations in a manner of vicious circle of culture of poverty: it affects the process of socialization and cognitive development, and sometimes (rarely in India) it creates class-consciousness resulting into some kind of protest behavior. The paper emphasizes the lack of proper psychological researches in this crucial field of social concern, while the nova lists, film-makers and poets, unlike the behavioral scientists, have been concerned. The review then provides a guideline for future researches on psychology of poverty in India, both in terms of content and methodology.

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Working Papers | 1977

Process Consultation for Managing Change in a Voluntary Agency

T. V. Rao

This article describes the process of planned change in a voluntary organization working for social objectives. The author's experiences with this agency as a facilitator for reflection, team building and planning the administrative structure for the process of change are described. A few principles underlying process consultation, assessment/team of work and planning and managing change are outlined.

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Working Papers | 1977

Mathematical Programming Method to Determine exact

Rai Ajai K

The derivation of "optimal allocation" of sample sizes to different strata in stratified random sampling does not take into account the integrality, non-negativity and upper bound restrictions on the sample sizes. One of the consequences of this is that the formula at times requires more than 100% sampling in some strata. In this paper an exact integer programming formulation is proposed and an efficient method of finding optimal solution is given. An alternative method using incremental or marginal analysis approach is also given. A numerical example illustrating the non-optimality of the current procedures and the corresponding optimal solution obtained by the methods of the paper is also presented.

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