ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Gagan Bihari SahuSubscribe to Gagan Bihari Sahu

Identification of the Poor: Errors of Exclusion and Inclusion

With the help of the 2004-05 National Sample Survey Organisation unit level consumption expenditure data, this paper tries to estimate the extent of inclusion and exclusion errors in the identification of below-thepoverty line households. In spite of continuous efforts towards improving the methodology of the BPL census, a significant difference between the "estimated" and the "identified" poor still persists. Against this backdrop, this paper attempts to develop an alternative method based on "vulnerability criteria" for the identification of the poor. Estimation shows that the prescribed criteria not only reduce the exclusion error significantly, but also suggest inclusion of a larger number of vulnerable households in the BPL list. Because of the data limitations, this exercise remains tentative. Nevertheless, it sets the possibility of further exploration to address the issue of large-scale errors.

Banking Sector Reform and Credit Flow to Indian Agriculture

Have banking sector reforms improved the share of net bank credit to the agricultural sector? Have profit-oriented norms persuaded commercial banks to neglect the agricultural sector? Does the provision of a credit subsidy reduce the supply of agricultural credit? Can an increase in the lending rate be a suitable measure to reduce the rate of credit subsidy? What is the interest rate elasticity of supply of agricultural credit? What has been the impact of the closure of rural bank branches on the provision of credit to agriculture? This paper addresses these questions by analysing the data on the total outstanding credit provided by the scheduled commercial banks to the agricultural sector during the period 1981 to 2000.

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