Journal Press India^®

               We are pleased to bring to our readers another diverse issue of PRAGATI covering topics ranging from NPAs in banking sector, pollution, discretionary transfers, to health expenditure, public debt and tourism sector. This issue also has a review paper on the topic of education and economic development. There are also two case studies: one on microfinance and the other on digital initiatives.

               The paper by Dr. Sanjeev Kumar and Dr. Prem Prakash analyses the growth and structure of NPAs in priority and non-priority sector lending of public and private sector banks in India and find that while both the priority and non-priority sector NPAs have contributed significantly to total NPAs of the banks, the non-priority sector NPAs contribution to total NPAs was more from the year 2013 onwards. They recommend that the private and public sector banks should make efforts for reducing sector-wise NPAs. Dr. S P Sharma and Ms. Areesha, in their paper,  conduct an in-depth analysis of the impact of rising pollution on the economy through assessment of cost involved in environmental degradation and loss of human power. This paper reviews the studies which have examined the empirical relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. Another paper by Dr. Chittaranjan Nayak and Mr. Priyabrata Satpathy examines the an interesting aspect of fiscal federalism in India, i.e. inter-governmental transfer. They focus on the determinants that influence the quantum of discretionary transfer to sub-national governments from a political economy perspective.

               The paper by Dr. Puttaswamaiah S. examines the burden of diseases and out of pocket expenditure on health in South Asian countries. The analysis reveals that non-communicable diseases have increased between 2000 and 2015; and communicable diseases have decreased in the region, with variation between countries. Private health expenditure incurred by people also has increased during the same time and out of pocket health expenditure indicates the higher burden on households in South Asia. Mr. Rakesh Kumar Pushp, in his paper on public debt of Himachal Pradesh, examines the causal relationship between public debt and financial indicators such as economic growth, public expenditure, revenue receipts and grant in aid for the state of Himachal Pradesh. Using a Granger causality approach, he analyses  and discusses the direction of causality obtained for different cases. Another interesting paper by Dr. Purva Kansal and Mr. Arpit Khurana examines the profitability of the Indian tourism sector using a fixed model panel analysis. They test the applicability of the SCP framework i.e. industrial structure, conduct and performance in the Indian tourism industry and find that the SCP paradigm was not supported for Indian tourism industry, though support was found for relationship between conduct and performance.

               As mentioned above, this issue has a review paper by Ms. Ananya Mitra and Dr. Himanshu Sekhar Rout that examines the contribution of various papers that study the relationship between education and economic development. The authors observe that there is a need for more research on the contribution of education to the economic development of India and also a need for our policymakers to increase the public spending on education.

               The first case study in this issue, by Dr. Bhajan Chandra Barman, discusses the role of microfinance in livelihood creation for Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Taking primary data for 32 Self Help Groups (SHGs), the author finds that employment of participants increased due to joining of SHGs and that microfinance programme was playing an important role for rural poor women. The other case study by  Ms. Nidhi Jhawar and Dr. Vivek S. Kushwaha reflects on citizens’ views on digital initiatives and e-readiness for the Aadhar project in Madhya Pradesh. Their findings show the proactive input and acceptance of information and communication technology initiative of government even from the low income respondents.

               We hope this issue of PRAGATI will provides useful insights to our readers on diverse issues confronting the Indian economy and we look forward to the continued support of our authors and readers.

Prof. K. V. Bhanu Murthy

         Editor