Research Projects of → Economics Department

Project Title :

State Finances of Odisha, Forest and Livelihood Systems of Odisha.

 

Principal Investigator and Affiliation : DRS Coordinator ( Prof. S. S. Rath)
Co-Investigator and Affiliation :
Funding Agency : UGC
Amount Sanction and Duration : Rs 8,00,000/- ( eight lakhs)   -   2013-2018
Project Title :

Childhood Poverty in Urban Orissa -A Case Study of Sambalpur Town
Principal Investigator and Affiliation : Dr. Sanjukta Das
Co-Investigator and Affiliation :
Funding Agency : ICSSR
Amount Sanction and Duration : Rs.2,73,050   -   March, 2008 to February, 2010
Project Proposal :
Childhood is a critical period of development in life; the capabilities that adults enjoy are deeply conditional on their experience as children (Sen 1999). Childhood poverty is the poverty experienced during childhood by children. Due to the scarcity of resources, households face the problem of adequate livelihood and children growing up in such families constitute poor. Childhood poverty is multidimensional in nature and sometimes one type of deprivation leads to another type. Broadly the different dimensions of child poverty are: (i) Health deprivation, (ii) Educational deprivations, and (iii) Livelihood deprivation. In India among the children (<5), 47 percent are under weight and 46 percent are stunting. It accounts for 20 percent of the World’s out-of-school children. It has the largest number of working children in the world. Orissa, being a poor state also suffer from such problems. Orissa’s child poverty as such and urban child poverty in particular has not attracted the attention of the researchers. This Project aims to examine the multi-dimensional nature and causes of childhood poverty in Sambalpur town of Orissa. It hypothises that (i) household’s size and composition, (ii) parents’ occupation, education, and their resource allocation among the members of the family - affect child poverty. The study is mainly based on primary data. Purposive sampling technique is used to select the Ward and 400 households from the Wards are selected using simple random sampling. For the analysis of data various statistical tools like averages, standard deviation, correlation and regression are used. It has constructed deprivation indices relating to health, education and livelihood and finally the Child Poverty index, the multi-dimensional index, computed on the basis of the stated deprivation indices. The study also has studied the determinants of each deprivation using Logit model. It is at the final stage and will be submitted soon.
Project Title :

Labour Market Implication of MGNREGA in Reducing Rural Poverty and Halting Migration in a Poverty Stricken State Odisha
Principal Investigator and Affiliation : Dr.Rathi Kanta Kumbhar
Co-Investigator and Affiliation :
Funding Agency : Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi
Amount Sanction and Duration : 8 Lakhs   -   2013 - 2015
Project Proposal :

The magnitude of Head Count Ratio in rural Odisha has remained higher compared to any other state of India and the incidence is more in the context of Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput (KBK) region of the state. Further there exist high social disparities. Planning Commission’s estimation from NSSO data depicts that the HCR in Orissa during 1993-94 and 2004-05 are 48 percent and 47 percent respectively. Further, the ratio stood at 71 percent in the southern part of Orissa, which constitute the KBK region and remained highest among the ST population of the region at 82.92 percent followed by SC 67.46 percent. Incidentally, the analysis of the NSSO’s unit level employment/unemployment data reveals that the Work Participation Rate has been remained highest in the southern Orissa compared to their counterparts. The higher percentages of HCR as well as WPR may reveal that the supply of labour may be higher in the region; hence a low level of wage rate may lead to higher level of HCR and hence lead to force migration. In such a situation MGNREGA may play a crucial role. It provides the legal guarantee of 100 days of wage employment to the rural labour households in a financial year. That’s why a superior impact of MGNREGA is anticipated. However, due to lack of awareness among the workers and malfunctioning of the implementing institutions, the MGNREGA is unable to achieve its desired goal of employment generation and poverty reduction, especially in the KBK regions (undivided Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi). Therefore, a detailed study on the implementation and impact of MGNREGA on Poverty Reduction Rural Orissa is proposed.

Project Title :

Debt Bondage and Seasonal Migration: A Study of WesternOdisha
Principal Investigator and Affiliation : Dr. Lopamudra Mishra
Co-Investigator and Affiliation :
Funding Agency : Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi
Amount Sanction and Duration : 4 Lakhs   -   January - December 2018
Project Proposal :

Western Odisha continues to depict a picture of chronic underdevelopment. In this region the type of migration that dominates is distress migration which is seasonal or circular in nature. Such seasonal migration encompasses migrants who usually stay at their destination for six months or more at a time. Significant numbers of people from this drought prone area migrate seasonally to work in brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. This is a type of migration in which the permanent residence of a person remains the same but the location of his other economic activity changes. In the unorganised sector of the economy the vulnerability to bondage is rooted due to the prevalence of inequality, social exclusion and poor performance of labour market. The aim of the project is to look into the factors responsible for the seasonal migration of debt bondage (Dadan) from the Western Odisha. The concept of debt bondage usually begins when poor people have no option but to take loan or wage advance from their employer to cover emergency or major social expenditures. They subsequently find it impossible to repay for a combination of reasons, including high interest rates, low pay and over-inflated prices for agricultural or other essential production inputs provided by the landlord or employer (ILO, 2005).

This project will look into the factors responsible for such migration and the problems faced by them at the working place and the problems faced by the other members of the family who are present in the native village during that period. Any possible solution to this problem will also be analysed considering the opportunities available at the local level.