Overview
Connections |
Raiganj, a neighbouring village is 3 kms from Palampur. And all weather road connects Palampur to Raiganj and further on to the town of Shahpur. |
Transport |
Bullock carts, tongas, bogeys loaded with jaggery and other commodities to motor vehicles like bikes, jeeps, tractors and trucks. |
Citizens |
~450 families belonging to different castes. The 80 upper caste families own the majority of the land, their houses are made of brick and cement plastering. The SCs (dalits) comprise 1/3 of the population and live in one corner of the village and in much smaller houses made of mud and straw. |
Buildings |
Most houses have electricity, it powers all the tubewells in the fields and is used in various types of small business. Palampur has two primary school and one high school. There is one public health centre and one private dispensary where the sick are treated. |
Taken from pg 1 of Economics Class IX (NCERT).
Capital
Small farmers borrow to arrange the capital from big farmers or money lenders, such loans have very high interest rates. Medium and large farmers arrange capital themselves. Mostly medium and large farmers supply the market, they sell the surplus of wheat from what it required to sustain themselves. They save the profit or loan it to small farmers. |
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Organization of Production
Production |
Production is the process by which inputs are transformed into 'output |
Factors of Production: |
Land and other natural resources. (Water, forests and minerals) |
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Labour - Some activities required skilled labourers while some require manual labourers. |
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Physical Capital - Various inputs -- Fixed Capital, tools like machines. Working Capital, like raw materials and money in hand. |
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Human Capital - Knowledge and experience to use the above factors. |
Taken from pg. 2 of Economics Class IX (NCERT).
Labour
In Palampur, 150 (a third) of the families are landless (mostly dalits). 240 families cultivate in land lesser than 2 hectares (This doesn't provide enough income). 60 families cultivate in land over 2 hectares. A few families have land 10 hectares or more. Small farmers cultivate themselves. Medium and large farmers hire workers for the fields (The workers being landless or small farmers). They are paid wages (cash, kind (crops et cetera) or meals)), it differs from place to place, crop to crop and farm activity to farm activity. They may be employed daily, for a farm activity or for the full year. The minimum wage set by the government is 300 RS. but people settle for as little as 160 due to the high competition and low availability of jobs. |
Non-Farm Activities
25% of people working in Palampur are engaged in non-farm activities. Dairy is a very common activity, people feed their buffalos grass, jowar and bajra grown in the rainy season, the milk is sold in nearby towns (Raiganj), traders from Shahpur set up collection-cum-chilling centres in Raiganj. |
Less than 50 people are engaged in manufacturing in Palampur, it is done with very simple methods, it is done at home or in the fields with family. |
Not many people are involved in trade, sellers buy from wholesale markets and sell them in the village, for example, rice, wheat, sugar, tea, oil, biscuits, soap, toothpaste, batteries, candles, notebooks, stationary and cloth. Few families close to the bus stands open small shop to set up eatables. |
Rickshawallahs, tongawallahs, jeep, tractor, truck drivers, bullock carts and bogey drivers offer transportation. They ferry people in exchange for money. The people involved have grown over the years. |
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Land
In Palampur, 75% of the people are dependent on farming for their livelihood. They be could farmers or farm labourers. Since 1960, there has been no expansion in land area under cultivation. By them, some wastelands had been converted. There is no further scope for expansion. (The standard unit for measuring land is hectare, in villages local unites like bigha or guintha can be used. One hectare = 10,000m2) |
From the crops grown, Palampur would resemble a village in west UP. No land is wasted, in the monsoon, kharif farmers grow jawar and bajra (cattle feed), October to December, potatoes are grown, and in the winter season, (rabi) wheat is grown. Surplus is sold. Some land is devoted to sugarcane throughout the year and harvested once. It is sold raw or as jaggery in Shahpur, This time of multiple cropping is possible due to good irrigation. People observed electric tubewells irrigate larger areas more effectively than a Persian wheel, a few were installed by the government and soon farmers got private tubewells. By the mid-1970s, the complete area of 200 hectares was irrigated. |
Growing multiple types of crops on the same piece of land during different times of the year is multiple cropping. Farmers in Palampur grow two main crops and many grow potatoes as the third. |
Till the mid-1960s, traditional seeds were used, after, HYV (High Yield Variety) seeds were used. The Green Revolution introduced many modern farming methods. HYV seeds provided higher yields, but required higher amounts of water and fertilizers. Farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western UP were the first to utilize these concepts. They set up tubewells, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery. In Palampur, wheat went from 1300 kg per hectare to 3200 kg per hectare. Modern farming methods have overused the natural resource base. In many areas, the Green Revolution implies lesser fertility (due to chemical fertilizers). Continuous use of groundwater depletes the water table. Very difficult to restore such resources. |
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