Trends in rural fiscal decentralisation in India’s Karnataka state: a focus on public health

For decades, decentralisation reforms have been seen as a powerful instrument by health policy advocates to improve health sector performance in developing countries. In India, the 73rd Constitutional Amendment introduced in 1992 called for strengthening the fiscal autonomy and service delivery capacity of rural local governments. This paper explores how decentralised governance influences public health sector resource allocation, equity and efficiency in rural Karnataka. For this, the authors analysed administrative data published by the Karnataka state government to create tailored standardised performance measures that capture the degree of local governments’ fiscal discretion in implementing public health programmes from 2011–18 at the district level. The findings highlight sector-specific differences in fiscal autonomy, ranging from high local discretion over funds in the nutrition sector to very limited discretion in the medical and public health sector. They also show that decentralised public health funding is not well-targeted to areas of greatest need in Karnataka

AN ANALYSIS OF GROWTH AND PERFORMANCE OF KARNATAKA STATE COOPERATIVE AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT BANK IN KARNATAKA

Primary Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Banks are playing an important role in meeting the credit requirements of the rural population. The main activity of the Bank is the dispensation of long-term credit for agricultural and rural development under schematic lending approved by NABARD Bank. The lending programs are for productive purposes like integrated loans for agriculture and allied agricultural purposes under major and medium-term projects. The present study was carried out with a broad objective to examine the performance of the Karnataka State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank (KSCARD Bank). The study has made use of secondary data (2010- 11 to 2019-20) and the analysis is carried out by using the exponential growth model which has been used to analyze the performance of KSCARD Bank. Finally, it is concluded that the lending performance has very crucial role in Long Term Credit requirements, but the status of the recovery balance of KSCARD bank is very high when compared to the demand and collection of the recovery

Constraints and Suggestions Encountered by the Beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana in Tumkur District of Karnataka

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) is a crop-based insurance policy designed to help farmers who have suffered crop loss or damage and stabilizes farm income. In the year 2020-21, a study was conducted in the Tumkur district of Karnataka as district had highest number of insurance units (895) as compared to other districts of the Karnataka state. The findings of the study revealed that delay in getting the claim was the prime constraint faced by the beneficiaries with a highest percentage of 81.67 per cent and as ranked first followed by less compensation offered (80.00 per cent) and getting claims is a complicated procedure (76.67 per cent). With respect to suggestions given by the beneficiaries were before the start of the next season, the claim should be distributed with a percentage of 87.50 and ranked first, followed by organizing awareness programs for farmers regarding PMFBY (78.33 per cent) and representatives from financial institutions and policy makers should monitor and supervise the assessment (72.50 per cent). The study bought out a number of various constraints faced by the farmers related to Crop Insurance Schemes. As a result, concerned officers should approach the State Government and request that they make earnest efforts to pay the claim before the start of the following season as well as conduct more training and awareness programs.

Cultural, Morphological and Biochemical Variability Studies among the Isolates of Alternaria solani, the Causal Agent of Early Blight Disease of Tomato

Present experiment was conducted at College of Horticulture, Bengaluru (KA) during year 2017–18 to study the cultural, morphological and biochemical variations among the isolates of the pathogen Alternaria solani, the causal agent of early blight disease in tomato. The results revealed variation among the isolates collected from different regions of Karnataka state, India with regard to the colony characteristics viz., colony colour, mycelial growth pattern, margin of the colony and zonations whereas the maximum mycelial growth in terms of diameter (90 mm) was observed in the isolates Bagalkot (BaBG) and Chikkamagaluru (CMH) on Czapek’s (Dox) agar medium while the least growth (36.33) was noticed in Bidar (BiHH) isolate. The isolate could grow better on Czapek’s (Dox) agar medium as among the 3 media tested Czapek’s (Dox) agar medium produced maximum growth of 80.70 mm and the least growth (63.70 mm) was noticed in V-8 juice agar. The morphological studies revealed that all the conidia of various isolates varied in length (25.07–42.90 µm), breadth (10.53–21.52 µm) and number of horizontal septa (2–7), longitudinal septa (0–4). Biochemical studies among the isolates revealed significant variation in their enzyme activities. The peroxidase activity was more in Chikamagaluru (CMH) isolate (81.80 Unit g-1 FW) least activity was found in Bidar (BiHH) isolate 11.78 Unit g-1 FW whereas the esterase activity was more Bengaluru (BYC) isolate (69.01 Unit g-1 FW) least activity was found in Bagalkot (BaBG) isolate 11.78 Unit g-1 FW. Existence of variation among the isolates of Alternaria solani evident from the results obtained.

Hard and Invisible Bricks in the Wall: An Empirical Investigation on Gender, Caste, and Health Among Migrant Brick Workers in South India

The current cross-sectional study is on the pathetic and excruciating conditions of employees in the brick industry conducted using a mixed-method approach in selected kilns from the four Districts of Karnataka State, South India. India is the country producing the highest number of bricks after China. Economic coercion is pushing the massive poor, especially the women labourers to engage in hard physical labour to survive. This study has explored that labourers in the brick industry are being exploited and excluded in voluminous ways. Caste plays a predominant role while hiring, wage fixation, and assigning the job at kilns. Women labour is being devalued in the name of the traditional and irrational social construction of gender. Sexual exploitations, low payment, restless work, harassment, absence of labour laws, are common here. It is found that rigid intergenerational occupational mobility into unorganised sectors among lower-caste people, as well as intra/intra-community social networks, among brick workers, are being called into question. We conclude that this is the time to think about the ‘National Register of Interstate Migrants’ and ‘National Mission to the Brick Industry’ in the context of the post-economic situation of COVID-19.

Trend Analysis of Temperature and Rainfall across Agro Climatic Zones of Karnataka-A Semi Arid State in India

The study was carried out for ten Agro climatic zones in Karnataka state in India. The temperature and rainfall data were used for analysis from 1979-2019 which is about 40 years. Understanding spatiotemporal rainfall pattern, Rainfall Anomaly Index which is drought indicator technique was used to classify the positive and negative severities in rainfall anomalies. The RAI ranges below 0.2 are considered as dry zone. The analysis resulted that, all zones are falls in category of dry zone with range of 0.2 to 0.4. For past five years, North Eastern Transition Zone was noted maximum times falling in the range of RAI below 0.2 and near to zero. Statistical techniques like linear trend estimation, R square was used for trend estimation across annual, seasonal to identify the variation in the temperature across different zones. The meaningful statistically significant achieves when there is r2≥0.65 and p≤0.05. It was analysed that, hilly Zone experienced decreased trend in both minimum and maximum temperature in all seasons which ultimately reflected in annual temperature to decrease with high R square values.

Attitude of Sericulture Beneficiary Farmers towards the Activities of Technical Service Centres (TSCs) in Karnataka State of India

Sericulture in Karnataka is in the process of modernization in many phases through new demand driven extension approach called Technical Service Centres (TSCs) located at the grass-root level (Hobli and Taluka level). These centres mainly involved in the dissemination of the technologies developed by the Research Institutes and also in supply of mulberry cuttings/saplings, monitoring mulberry cultivation, silkworm rearing and providing information about loan facilities and subsidy schemes. There is a need to study the attitude of sericulture beneficiary farmers towards activities of TSCs. The study was conducted during 2018-20 in the Karnataka state of India. The Karnataka state was contributing 35.00 per cent of silk production in India. An ex-post facto research design was used or the study. An attitude was measured by Likert scale construction. The Ramanagara and Mandya districts were selected because these district having highest number of TSCs in Bangalore and Mysore division respectively. Mandya, Malavalli and K.R Pet taluks from Mandya district on the other hand Ramanagara, Channapatna and Kanakapura taluks from Ramanagara district were purposively selected for the study. Above taluks were selected based on top 3 taluks in TSCs in district. The four TSCs from each taluk leads to twelve from each district, Totally, 24 TSCs were selected for the study. Ten sericulture farmers under each TSC, collectively 240, were selected by using random sampling method. The study revealed that just little more than half (50.42%) of the sericulture farmers had medium favourable attitude towards activities of TSCs followed by high favourable attitude (35.00%) and only 14.58 per cent of the sericulture farmers had low favourable attitude. The probable reason might be majority of the sericulture farmers participated in trainings at Sericulture Training Institute at K.R Pet of Mandya District and Channapatna of Ramanagara district and also they were undergone for study tour to Kolar district. They were supplied subsidized mulberry saplings, bed disinfectants, growth promoters among sericulture farmers.