Journal Press India^®

               It is my pleasure to bring forth to our readers another interesting and insightful issue of PRAGATI. The flavour of this issue tends towards the rural economy with three out of seven papers being in that area. However, some important insights have been obtained in respect of banking and foreign trade as well. An interesting paper in this issue is on ‘Microfinance as a way of financial inclusion in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal’ authored by Bhajan Chandra Barman. The paper analyses the role of SHGs towards financial inclusion of the rural poor in Cooch Behar District of West Bengal and the findings show that after joining the SHGs, 1,37,978 rural poor have been able to join with the formal financial institutions in the district of Cooch Behar.

Similarly, a research paper by Ms. Sonia, entitled, ‘Evolution of strategic groups amongst public sector banks in India’, projects a new perspective on Public Sector Banks (PSBs). It states that the evolution of strategic groups amongst public sector banks have taken place over a time period, namely, SBI group and nationalised banks group. The paper shows that PSBs are not a homogenous group of banks. Dr. Deepti Kakkar’s paper on ‘A discussion on India’s Manufacturing Sector: Weaknesses and the way forward’ concludes that the industry has not grown at the desired speed and has not generated enough employment opportunities.

‘An exploratory study of renewable power sector in India’ by Shukrant Jagota and Deepika Kamboj, concludes that renewable power has played a pivoted role in the expansion of power generation and transmission with its increased contribution in the overall generation mix from 24.5 GW in FY12 to over 57.3 GW in FY17. The paper also discusses several drivers such as government’s renewable power targets, Central and state-level incentives, and declining technology costs that have outpaced the barriers prevalent around poor financial condition of State Electricity Boards. In the paper entitled ‘Determinants of Sanitary Practices in Rural Odisha’ by C. R. Nayak, it has been estimated with the help of a Tobit model, that caste category, occupation and government subsidy are the important factors influencing the sanitary practices of the study areas.

‘Self Help Group: A Strategy to Rural Development of Puri District in Odisha, India, a paper by Dr. Kailash Chandra Mishra, highlights that the “Self Help Groups (SHGs) have a positive and significant impact on generation of employment and income of its members engaged in different economic activities such as commercial farming, pisiculture, food processing, trade & commerce, household industry and agriculture.

Ms. Simran Sethi, in her paper ‘Trade and Economic Growth: The Case of India’, finds that the empirical results support both the growth-led exports and growth-led imports hypothesis. The growth-led exports states that only after a country reaches certain level of economic development, and satisfies the demand in its domestic market, it can start exporting its products. The growth-led imports proposition states that import demand increases as an economy becomes economically advanced.

                     As stated before, this issue of PRAGATI sees a focus on pertinent issues in rural economy, along with important insights for banking and foreign trade as well. The evolution of strategic groups in banking is refreshingly different from the constant refrain of running down Public Sector Banks. A focus on allied primary activities like pisiculture is also welcoming.

Wishing the readers a festive season ahead!

Prof. K.V. Bhanu Murthy

Editor