Journal of Rural Development

Pesala Busenna ¹, A. Amarender Reddy ¹

Affiliations
1 Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, IN

Abstract

Khadi constitutes an important segment of the textile sector. Khadi has been defined as any cloth woven on handlooms in India from cotton, silk or woollen yarn handspun in India or from a mixture of any two or all of such yarns. The main objectives of the study are to assess the employment generation potential of the Khadi institutions. Secondly, the study focuses on identification of problems faced by the selected institutions. Data presented related to the period 2003-08, and projection of production and requirement of spinners and weavers by 2012. The study also collected data on all khadi institutions and assessed their capabilities, projection of their requirement in terms of spinning and weaving infrastructure, upgradation of skills of artisans and supervisory workers. Totally, 200 khadi institutions were identified. All the A+&A category institutions were surveyed. The paper focuses on employment generation of Khadi sector during study period and projections for 2012.

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A. Amarender Reddy ¹, Ch. Radhika Rani ¹, G. P. Reddy ¹

Affiliations
1 National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad, IN

Abstract

The paper assesses the technology and price policy options for edible oil sector in post-WTO scenario. Among all agricultural commodities, India's edible oil sector is more open to international markets and various policy instruments are used to influence demand and supply conditions. Within edible oil complex, oil cake/meal are highly competitive and edible oils are not competitive. The paper argues that even though in oilseed production India is competitive, due to inefficient processing sector, edible oils are less competitive. Processing sector is dominated by traditional ghanies and expellers with low capacity, low oil recovery and outdated technology. The paper suggests that reducing tariffs on oilseed sector will have negligible effect on trade creation and consumer surplus, while eliminating tariffs on edible oils will increase edible oil imports by 50 per cent over the base scenario of 5 mt in 2007. Increasing efficiency in processing sector through increased capacity utilisation and modernisation of processing sector are important to reduce cost of production of edible oils. There was a need to simplify norms to facilitate upgradation of technology and innovation in processing sector. Providing support for innovation, encouraging the spread of best practice, providing loan guarantees for small firms, and providing subsidies for investment in oilseed production centres to upgradation in ghanies and expellers is essential to make edible oils competitive within edible oil complex internationally and reduce over-dependence on imports of edible oils.

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