Kaveri Gill

Abstract: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES, LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS, MAP 1. Introduction 2. The City of Delhi WASTE AS INFORMAL SECTOR WORK: MEASURING INCOME POVERTY, INEQUALITY, AND DEPRIVATION 4. Interlinked Contracts and Social Power: Patronage and Exploitation in India's Waste Recovery Market 5. Exploitation or Entrepreneurship? Scrap Traders and the Economics of Survival in the Informal Market Economy FROM PIGS AND POLLUTION TO PLASTICS AND PROGRESS: RECASTING LOW CASTE STATUS IN INDIA'S EXPANDING INFORMAL ECONOMY 7. 'Bourgeois Environmentalism', the State, the Judiciary and the Urban Poor: The Political Mobilization of a Scheduled Caste Market 8. Conclusion. METHODOLOGICAL NOTE, PLASTICS APPENDIX, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX.

Abstract: This paper seeks to evaluate quantity and quality of service delivery in rural public health facilities under NRHM. On appropriate and feasible measures, the former is assessed on the static and dynamic condition of physical infrastructure; by the numbers of paramedical, technician and medical staff employed, as well as figures for attendance and gender breakdown; by the supply, quality and range of drugs; by availability and usage of decentralised untied and maintenance funding of centres; and by actual availability of laboratory, diagnostic and service facilities. Quality is defined in relation to the condition of the above tangibles, as also supplemented by subjective data on intangibles, such as patient satisfaction, gathered from the exit interviews.[PEO WP NO 1/2009]

Abstract: Interlinked contracts have been examined almost exclusively in the context of the rural sphere. This article describes the nature of exchange regimes between two sets of primary collectors of recyclable waste, that is, waste pickers and itinerant buyers, and their dealers, in the city of Delhi. Far from the casualised labour transaction commonly described for the unorganised urban sector, the findings portray a picture of personalised and surprisingly long-term exchange between the parties. While a new institutional economics approach might explain the underlying motivation and consequent general form of the implicit contracts, it cannot explain the differential nature of each. It is suggested that in order to do that a political economy approach must be taken. This would understand interlinked transactions as being embedded within and consequently influenced by the particular social context, in this case of an inequitable and impermeable caste hierarchy amongst those that engage in waste work.

Abstract: This volume applies the interdisciplinary 'field economics' approach to poverty analysis. The work is based on extensive fieldwork in the pre-urban edge of the sprawling metropolis of Delhi It assesses the economic, social, and political institutions and processes that structure the well-being, agency, and activities of the poor who are waste scavengers and involved with plastic recycling. Using a mix of survey and ethnographic data, it tells the complete story of how the waste picker at the lowest level of the chain fares in comparison to other kinds of occupational groups engaged in different parts of the scavenging and recycling chain, as well as in other parts of the informal economy. It focuses on the following themes: how occupational choices are dictated by low caste status; how these groups negotiate and surmount market failures and state failures to create a viable informal economy supporting numerous livelihoods and businesses; and how these groups gain or lose from patronage links at the level of the state government and national political parties.

Abstract: This report is circumscribed in its aims, limiting itself to a subset of all that could be written about the status and situation of Scheduled Tribes in India today. An introduction in chapter 1 sets out demographics of the tribal population and the characteristics of their habitat, predominantly in mainland India. In chapter 2, it set out how the colonial State constructed and codified the ‘tribal’ and the ‘tribal area’, with a narrative of a civilising mission thinly disguising instrumental forays to support the security and economic needs of the Empire. The post-colonial State begins with an isolationist stance, but quickly reverts to the mode of the colonial State. In chapter 3, the use of the same categories of the ‘tribal’ and the ‘tribal area’—ostensibly for progressive policies and special dispensation—but increasingly such categories are used to further an integrationist agenda whereby their ‘modernisation’ and ‘development’ is closely shadowed by security imperatives. In chapter 4, it empirically examine how the Scheduled Tribes have been faring on poverty, deprivation and some other development indicators over the past two decades. Soon after India’s liberalisation, the 8th Five-Year Plan onwards, the post-colonial State formulated new institutional reform legislations, such as the Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act in 1996 and Forest Rights Act in 2006, which are discussed in chapter 5.

Abstract: In India, despite improvements in access to health care, inequalities are related to socioeconomic status, geography, and gender, and are compounded by high out-of-pocket expenditures, with more than three-quarters of the increasing financial burden of health care being met by households. Health-care expenditures exacerbate poverty, with about 39 million additional people falling into poverty every year as a result of such expenditures. We identify key challenges for the achievement of equity in service provision, and equity in financing and financial risk protection in India. These challenges include an imbalance in resource allocation, inadequate physical access to high-quality health services and human resources for health, high out-of-pocket health expenditures, inflation in health spending, and behavioural factors that affect the demand for appropriate health care. Use of equity metrics in monitoring, assessment, and strategic planning; investment in development of a rigorous knowledge base of health-systems research; development of a refined equity-focused process of deliberative decision making in health reform; and redefinition of the specific responsibilities and accountabilities of key actors are needed to try to achieve equity in health care in India. The implementation of these principles with strengthened public health and primary-care services will help to ensure a more equitable health care for India's population.

Abstract: The informal economy consists of economic activities that occur outside of formal institutional boundaries but which remain within informal institutional boundaries for large segments of society. We draw from diverse disciplines to frame research concerning entrepreneurship in the informal economy around three separate theories: institutional theory, motivation-related theories from a sociological perspective, and resource allocation theory. Each of these theories provides a complementary lens through which to examine the incentives, constraints, motivations, strategies, and abilities of entrepreneurs to operate and grow their ventures in the informal economy. Employing these theoretical perspectives facilitates efforts to highlight the breadth of informal economy research in different domains and lays foundations for future entrepreneurship research.