Sukhpal Singh – författare

Sustainable development has emerged as an overarching concern globally. Given the challenges of climate change, national economies, especially in the developing world, face unsustainable levels and patterns of growth and development. This volume looks at how India’s sustainable development has progressed through institutional changes and public policy discourse. It studies the three pillars of sustainability – technology, governance, and finance. The authors examine whether institutions have been able to work towards becoming inclusive and participatory and whether public policy can remain relevant and agile in a fast-changing world to ensure sustainable development.

Written in honour of Professor Vinod Vyasulu, an erudite economist with wide-ranging interests, this volume will be of interest to academics and practitioners engaged with issues of development, policy, institutions, and technology in the fields of Economics, Sociology, Development Studies, Public Policy, and South Asian Studies.

Sustainable development has emerged as an overarching concern globally. Given the challenges of climate change, national economies, especially in the developing world, face unsustainable levels and patterns of growth and development. This volume looks at how India’s sustainable development has progressed through institutional changes and public policy discourse. It studies the three pillars of sustainability – technology, governance, and finance. The authors examine whether institutions have been able to work towards becoming inclusive and participatory and whether public policy can remain relevant and agile in a fast-changing world to ensure sustainable development.

Written in honour of Professor Vinod Vyasulu, an erudite economist with wide-ranging interests, this volume will be of interest to academics and practitioners engaged with issues of development, policy, institutions, and technology in the fields of Economics, Sociology, Development Studies, Public Policy, and South Asian Studies.

This book uses primary evidence to assess the value of agro-input and service delivery business models in terms of their inclusiveness, effectiveness and impact from a small farmer perspective, in the form of case studies in three Indian states: Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The services discussed include custom rental of farm machinery and equipment, franchising for backward and forward linkage for farmers and the supermarkets for delivery of farm inputs, and extension services.

The book examines agro-input and service delivery business models as institutional innovations for inclusive and effective delivery of such services in the small farmer context, based on primary data from the agencies designing and implementing such models and the farmers who make use of these inputs and services. Further, it identifies major issues and challenges in the delivery of farm inputs and services across regions and types of farmers and examines possible policy and enabling provisions to promote cost-effective and high-quality agro-input delivery channels.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the pre-Covid-19 and post-Covid-19 situation and public policy measures needed to revive the economy in the light of the recent initiatives by the state government, including a committee to suggest post-Covid-19 revival strategy. This collection of essays by specialized author/s in her/his/their area of research examines the impact of Covid-19 in the larger context of economic and developmental context of Punjab, ranging from basic developmental transformation analysis to the specific policy issues in each sector and policy domain, including the larger developmental crisis in the context of the regional economy and society of Punjab. The sectors analysed include: agriculture including dairy sector and agricultural markets, industry, services, education, health, besides fiscal, banking, diaspora, gender, governance, and sustainability challenges the state economy faces. It dwells on sector specific issues as well as ways forward for betterment of livelihoods of those engaged, especially farmers and industrial and service sector informal workers.

The book is an exhaustive assessment of the innovative farmer producer companies or co-operative companies in India based on 23 case studies of such companies, including all-women member PCs, across four states of India. It not only assesses the physical and financial performance of the producer companies (PC) as business entities per se but also examines their impact on members compared with their situation before they became members and also compared with their non-member counterparts. It  makes an assessment  of performance and impact based on quantitative and qualitative data from various stakeholders like producer companies’ employees, board members, and member and non-member farmers. The book analyzes data collected from farmer members and non-members of these PCs and compares performance of PC across promoters within a state and thus assesses the goodness of promotion model of each promoter studied. The methodology used is mixed methods approach wherein case study approach as well as interview survey method have been adopted. More importantly, the case studies also include some PCs which were more of a failure than a success story, to identify existing challenges.

The book also examines aspects of governance and management of these PCs for practical and policy lessons.  Not just for research and academic fraternity, the book is also a  very timely resource for policy makers, promoters and practitioners of collective action among smallholders given that Government of India has  promoted 10,000 new Farmers Producer Organisations (FPO) over the last five years by now (2024) with large producer organization and promoter funding; and has framed a new FPO policy (2024)  while many states already had FPO promotion policies and schemes.