Chandan Roy - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Chandan Roy

Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities

This paper explores how the silk production in India started flourishing from mid of the seventee... more This paper explores how the silk production in India started flourishing from mid of the seventeenth century when the demand for cheaper Bengal silk began to rise in European market. Initially Dutch merchants were collecting the silk from domestic market for exporting it to Europe and later English East India Company (EEIC) took over the control of silk trade spreading their tentacles in different parts of Bengal. In order to improve the quality, EEIC introduced Italian technology of reeling in Bengal in 1769, though Bengal sericulture was unable to adapt the technology. Bengal economy was going through several natural calamities and domestic disturbances. From 1813 the company started selling its filatures. The economic power of dadani merchant, money-lenders started growing from this period and they formed a new middle class while the situation of artisan and farmer classes deteriorated. The condition of native artisans of Bengal further worsened under the rule of British Monarch ...

Turkish Economic Review, 2015

Abstract. Artisanal silk industry is a highly labour and land intensive activity ideally suited f... more Abstract. Artisanal silk industry is a highly labour and land intensive activity ideally suited for economy like India. During medieval period, it was practiced as a dependable livelihood and Moghul Rulers were the patronizers. By 16 th Century, commercial production of silk was started in Bengal by Sultan Hussain Shah. From the mid of 17 th century, silk trade in India started flourishing since the demand for cheaper Bengal Silk began to rise in the European market. British traders realized that only low price of silk would not be enough to retain their market, and they introduced Piedmontese technology, though it was not suitable for Bengal economy at that point of time. After cessation of monopoly trade right, EEIC started selling off its filatures, thus spelling its gradual decline. After independence, attempts were made to transplant the temperate sericulture technology in the traditional silk producing states of India. West Bengal failed to bring the desired result both in dom...

Employment generation is one of the major potentials of Sericulture and Silk Industry in India. T... more Employment generation is one of the major potentials of Sericulture and Silk Industry in India. The farm and non-farm activity of this sector creates sixty lakh mandays of employment every year mostly in rural sector. The industry helps to create egalitarian distribution of income as it transfers greater share of its wealth from high end urban customers to poor artisan classes. In West Bengal, more than one lakh families are occupied with sericulture activities where Karnataka is the state with the largest number of families involved with sericulture. Despite having high level family involvement, West Bengal produces smaller quantities of raw silk compared to Karnataka as well as Andhra Pradesh. This paper investigates the reason of this low production and finds out that low productivity of land is no way responsible for that. Different Employment Models constructed in this paper suggest that ‘area of mulberry cultivation’, ‘cocoon-market’ and ‘power-looms’ are powerful factors in c...

Women workers constitute one third of the world labour force performing two thirds of working hou... more Women workers constitute one third of the world labour force performing two thirds of working hours but their contributory role remains invisible. Sericulture is such an activity where most of the work is performed by women alone in terms of operations performed and time invested. Despite showing tenacity and persistence, the women workers remain as unpaid family workers or low paid hired workers. The core objective of this paper is to make a situational analysis of these women workers in sericulture sector of West Bengal against the backdrop of their impoverished condition. It is observed that with the increase in household size, more number of male workers are getting attached to sericulture activities while women workers are being crowded out. Actually, domination of women workers are rather observed when less of working days is performed. This paper has designed women empowerment index both in family sphere and social sphere and have shown how this empowerment is influencing the...

This article addresses the question of whether free international trade flow in silk industry, es... more This article addresses the question of whether free international trade flow in silk industry, especially in the post MFA regime, could usher inclusive development in that specific sector. I propose ‘employment’ and ‘production’ as the two parameters of inclusive development in this sector and derived initially cohesion, though weak, of this parameter with earnings from exports of silk and silk goods. However, analyzing the secondary data over the post globalized era (1995-96 to 2014-15), I conclude that ‘inclusive development’ which have virtually taken place in Indian sericulture sector is not originated from free flow of international trade, rather ‘land productivity’ is conducive to inclusive development in this sector.

The paper explores the impact of women workers’ dominance in sericulture sector upon the process ... more The paper explores the impact of women workers’ dominance in sericulture sector upon the process of inclusive development in the rural household sectors of West Bengal. Role of women in this artisanal silk sector has been historically evolved. Her patience, perseverance, caring attitude and adaptability to new technologies have made her activities more dominant in sericulture and silk production. Dominance of female workers in productive workforce is always expected to exert positive influence on all development paradigm including health and education. This research paper specifically delves in intricate relationship between women dominance in sericulture activities and number of women and children existing in the family, household income, household –size, total man-days involved and wage difference between male and female workers. The share of women workers in total labour force in this household industry is inversely being influenced by the hired to domestic female ratios and numb...

Sericulture, as an agro based artisanal industry, has proved its potential in raising sustainable... more Sericulture, as an agro based artisanal industry, has proved its potential in raising sustainable income and employment in the rural sector of both traditional and non-traditional states of India. The entire gamut of production in sericulture generates huge economic growth for small villages and its inhabitants and restrict rural to urban migration. This study is based on primary data of sample size 50 which belong to the sericulture farmers and artisans in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The paper analyzes their knowledge level on improved technology and the adoption level of this advanced technology in sericulture business. The knowledge of technology has found to have greater impact on improving the productivity and production in terms of agriculture as well as its allied activities. This study finds out significant positive impact of variables like, full and partial knowledge about advanced technology and its adoption on the development of the sector. Farmers’ perce...

BHNP: History of Industry Development (Topic), 2017

Handloom industry provides widest employment opportunities in West Bengal, where 5.8% of the hous... more Handloom industry provides widest employment opportunities in West Bengal, where 5.8% of the households involved have been found to be silk handloom weavers, which bears a rich legacy. Shantipur and Phulia in Nadia district are the two major handloom concentrated areas in West Bengal. The main objective of this paper is to make a situational analysis of the handloom workers by focusing on the problems of the handloom weavers of Nadia district. The paper briefly elaborates the historical perspective of handloom clusters over this region at the backdrop of the then Bengal. It also analyzes the present crisis faced by the weavers of Phulia and Shantipur region of Nadia district. It makes a SWOT analysis of the handloom industry where strength, weakness, opportunity and threat of the handlooms sector has been analyzed. The paper recommends several measures like awareness campaign, financial literacy programme, SHG and consortium formation, common facility centre, dye house, market expos...

Artisanal silk industry, being low-capital intensive with low gestation periods and assured retur... more Artisanal silk industry, being low-capital intensive with low gestation periods and assured returns, suits a vast marginal class including landless farmers, low-skilled artisans and rural women with low opportunity cost of getting employed elsewhere. However, despite having high land productivities and generation-borne technical skill, artisanal silk industry is dwindling in West Bengal. The paper tries to focus on few pertinent issues of West Bengal’s silk industry where land-productivity is diminishing along with huge exodus of sericulture workers in the post globalisation era. Primary survey on Malda district of West Bengal exposes that cost of raw materials, loans taken by the artisans irrespective of its sources of collection and man-days creation for this vocation are significantly enhancing annual income flow generated by the sericultural family. In order to improvise this situation an effective institutional effort is required so that poor sericulture farmers can receive suf...

Productivity, 2020

Sericulture is a women intensive sector where 60% of the workers are either family workers or hir... more Sericulture is a women intensive sector where 60% of the workers are either family workers or hired female workers. Productive skill makes the presence of women invincible both in pre and post cocoon sectors. This larger participation is expected to raise their level of empowerment too. Higher level of empowerment is expected to induce the woman to usher improved productive technology. However field survey in Malda districts of West Bengal reveals a complete bleak picture. Neither productivity level, nor the empowerment level have reached the desired level, which calls for an immediate intervention and revision of policies.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

Sericulture is an important livelihood option in rural West Bengal providing employment to more t... more Sericulture is an important livelihood option in rural West Bengal providing employment to more than 1 lakh families in the rural and semi-urban areas. The productivity level of sericulture (land and leaf) is not low compared to that of the major silk producing states in the country, which opens further scope to research and analyse its productivity. This paper has explored several dimensions of its growth pattern during the planning periods of West Bengal. A field level survey in the major silk producing district of West Bengal has exposed few factors like household size and male hired labourers which are positively raising the level of average employment in the sericulture farms, while education level acts as a significant reducing factor, along with mandays involved with the activities. It implies sericulture is still only a popular livelihood activity among the backward people. On the other hand, small holding capacity of the rural farmers and poor economic condition of the artisans have been identified as major impediments in the path of development of sericulture in West Bengal. The rural moneylenders/ traders (dadani mahajan) utilizes this advantage and extracts a major part of the pay-off intruding into the supply chain of the industry. In the textile policy, the objective of the government always centres on the issues like extension of sericulture through acreage and production, ignoring the issues like 'economic-exploitation' faced by the artisanal classes at each level of value addition in the supply chain. In the absence of institutional apathy and well-linked credit system in the remote rural areas coupled with financial illiteracy of the rural artisans, the objective of development of artisanal silk industry in West Bengal seems to be far away.

Economic prosperity of a state depends upon the numbers of economic opportunities like, geographi... more Economic prosperity of a state depends upon the numbers of economic opportunities like, geographical advantages and location-specific conveniences. It also requires an entrepreneurial approach both from the ends of public and private sectors. Historical evidences witnessed that districts of North-Bengal in India have long been deprived from providing adequate support and security in successive planning. Uttar Dinajpur shares the same kind of misfortunes along with other districts of North-Bengal. It came into existence on 1992, after the bifurcation of erstwhile West-Dinajpur District and is one of the most backward districts in West Bengal where the degrees of backwardness grossly vary even across the blocks. This paper has portrayed the economic situations of the districts reflecting the economic potentials and addressed few multidimensional development issues across different blocks of the district and thereby expressing need of few specific policies to restructure the developmen...

Objectives: Sericulture, being low capital intensive, suits landless farmers and low-skilled arti... more Objectives: Sericulture, being low capital intensive, suits landless farmers and low-skilled artisans. This paper will focus on land productivity and technical efficiency of marginal artisanal classes and will measure their impact on income generation in the sericulture sector of West Bengal. Methods/Statistical analysis: Statistical analysis begins with analysis of income trends from raw silk at national and state level with the help of secondary level data. For primary survey four sericulture rich villages in Malda district has been chosen, where 60 silk-artisan households were selected using stratified random sampling for enquiring about their livelihood and income generation. Simple linear regression technique has been used using OLS method to estimate the statistical models based on apriori hypothesis. Results: The paper tests the statistical significance all income generating factors of the sericulture industry including land productivity, labour productivity, technological ef...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it dow... more Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it down through its gender promotional activities. There is bidirectional relationship between economic development and empowerment of women. Women empowerment, being dependent on complex sociological and economic issues, needs to be measured in terms of specific parameters like 'access to resources', 'decision making capability' and 'ability to take a stand'. This particular study develops an Index based on few sector-specific parameters to measure empowerment level of women engaged in Self Help Groups. Both 'individual empowerment index' and 'group empowerment indices' have been constructed, where'financial liberty', 'ability to take decisions', 'heath condition of the women and 'ability to stand up against the evils of the society' have been considered as her empowerment parameters. The index was applied on 300 SHG Group members of rural West Bengal, which provided us an idea about the existing level of rural women empowerment in West Bengal.

ANVESHAK-International Journal of Management, 2018

Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it dow... more Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it down through its gender promotional activities. There is bidirectional relationship between economic development and empowerment of women. Women empowerment, being dependent on complex sociological and economic issues, needs to be measured in terms of specific parameters like 'access to resources', 'decision making capability' and 'ability to take a stand'. This particular study develops an Index based on few sector-specific parameters to measure empowerment level of women engaged in Self Help Groups. Both 'individual empowerment index' and 'group empowerment indices' have been constructed, where'financial liberty', 'ability to take decisions', 'heath condition of the women and 'ability to stand up against the evils of the society' have been considered as her empowerment parameters. The index was applied on 300 SHG Group members of rural West Bengal, which provided us an idea about the existing level of rural women empowerment in West Bengal.

Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities

This paper explores how the silk production in India started flourishing from mid of the seventee... more This paper explores how the silk production in India started flourishing from mid of the seventeenth century when the demand for cheaper Bengal silk began to rise in European market. Initially Dutch merchants were collecting the silk from domestic market for exporting it to Europe and later English East India Company (EEIC) took over the control of silk trade spreading their tentacles in different parts of Bengal. In order to improve the quality, EEIC introduced Italian technology of reeling in Bengal in 1769, though Bengal sericulture was unable to adapt the technology. Bengal economy was going through several natural calamities and domestic disturbances. From 1813 the company started selling its filatures. The economic power of dadani merchant, money-lenders started growing from this period and they formed a new middle class while the situation of artisan and farmer classes deteriorated. The condition of native artisans of Bengal further worsened under the rule of British Monarch ...

Turkish Economic Review, 2015

Abstract. Artisanal silk industry is a highly labour and land intensive activity ideally suited f... more Abstract. Artisanal silk industry is a highly labour and land intensive activity ideally suited for economy like India. During medieval period, it was practiced as a dependable livelihood and Moghul Rulers were the patronizers. By 16 th Century, commercial production of silk was started in Bengal by Sultan Hussain Shah. From the mid of 17 th century, silk trade in India started flourishing since the demand for cheaper Bengal Silk began to rise in the European market. British traders realized that only low price of silk would not be enough to retain their market, and they introduced Piedmontese technology, though it was not suitable for Bengal economy at that point of time. After cessation of monopoly trade right, EEIC started selling off its filatures, thus spelling its gradual decline. After independence, attempts were made to transplant the temperate sericulture technology in the traditional silk producing states of India. West Bengal failed to bring the desired result both in dom...

Employment generation is one of the major potentials of Sericulture and Silk Industry in India. T... more Employment generation is one of the major potentials of Sericulture and Silk Industry in India. The farm and non-farm activity of this sector creates sixty lakh mandays of employment every year mostly in rural sector. The industry helps to create egalitarian distribution of income as it transfers greater share of its wealth from high end urban customers to poor artisan classes. In West Bengal, more than one lakh families are occupied with sericulture activities where Karnataka is the state with the largest number of families involved with sericulture. Despite having high level family involvement, West Bengal produces smaller quantities of raw silk compared to Karnataka as well as Andhra Pradesh. This paper investigates the reason of this low production and finds out that low productivity of land is no way responsible for that. Different Employment Models constructed in this paper suggest that ‘area of mulberry cultivation’, ‘cocoon-market’ and ‘power-looms’ are powerful factors in c...

Women workers constitute one third of the world labour force performing two thirds of working hou... more Women workers constitute one third of the world labour force performing two thirds of working hours but their contributory role remains invisible. Sericulture is such an activity where most of the work is performed by women alone in terms of operations performed and time invested. Despite showing tenacity and persistence, the women workers remain as unpaid family workers or low paid hired workers. The core objective of this paper is to make a situational analysis of these women workers in sericulture sector of West Bengal against the backdrop of their impoverished condition. It is observed that with the increase in household size, more number of male workers are getting attached to sericulture activities while women workers are being crowded out. Actually, domination of women workers are rather observed when less of working days is performed. This paper has designed women empowerment index both in family sphere and social sphere and have shown how this empowerment is influencing the...

This article addresses the question of whether free international trade flow in silk industry, es... more This article addresses the question of whether free international trade flow in silk industry, especially in the post MFA regime, could usher inclusive development in that specific sector. I propose ‘employment’ and ‘production’ as the two parameters of inclusive development in this sector and derived initially cohesion, though weak, of this parameter with earnings from exports of silk and silk goods. However, analyzing the secondary data over the post globalized era (1995-96 to 2014-15), I conclude that ‘inclusive development’ which have virtually taken place in Indian sericulture sector is not originated from free flow of international trade, rather ‘land productivity’ is conducive to inclusive development in this sector.

The paper explores the impact of women workers’ dominance in sericulture sector upon the process ... more The paper explores the impact of women workers’ dominance in sericulture sector upon the process of inclusive development in the rural household sectors of West Bengal. Role of women in this artisanal silk sector has been historically evolved. Her patience, perseverance, caring attitude and adaptability to new technologies have made her activities more dominant in sericulture and silk production. Dominance of female workers in productive workforce is always expected to exert positive influence on all development paradigm including health and education. This research paper specifically delves in intricate relationship between women dominance in sericulture activities and number of women and children existing in the family, household income, household –size, total man-days involved and wage difference between male and female workers. The share of women workers in total labour force in this household industry is inversely being influenced by the hired to domestic female ratios and numb...

Sericulture, as an agro based artisanal industry, has proved its potential in raising sustainable... more Sericulture, as an agro based artisanal industry, has proved its potential in raising sustainable income and employment in the rural sector of both traditional and non-traditional states of India. The entire gamut of production in sericulture generates huge economic growth for small villages and its inhabitants and restrict rural to urban migration. This study is based on primary data of sample size 50 which belong to the sericulture farmers and artisans in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The paper analyzes their knowledge level on improved technology and the adoption level of this advanced technology in sericulture business. The knowledge of technology has found to have greater impact on improving the productivity and production in terms of agriculture as well as its allied activities. This study finds out significant positive impact of variables like, full and partial knowledge about advanced technology and its adoption on the development of the sector. Farmers’ perce...

BHNP: History of Industry Development (Topic), 2017

Handloom industry provides widest employment opportunities in West Bengal, where 5.8% of the hous... more Handloom industry provides widest employment opportunities in West Bengal, where 5.8% of the households involved have been found to be silk handloom weavers, which bears a rich legacy. Shantipur and Phulia in Nadia district are the two major handloom concentrated areas in West Bengal. The main objective of this paper is to make a situational analysis of the handloom workers by focusing on the problems of the handloom weavers of Nadia district. The paper briefly elaborates the historical perspective of handloom clusters over this region at the backdrop of the then Bengal. It also analyzes the present crisis faced by the weavers of Phulia and Shantipur region of Nadia district. It makes a SWOT analysis of the handloom industry where strength, weakness, opportunity and threat of the handlooms sector has been analyzed. The paper recommends several measures like awareness campaign, financial literacy programme, SHG and consortium formation, common facility centre, dye house, market expos...

Artisanal silk industry, being low-capital intensive with low gestation periods and assured retur... more Artisanal silk industry, being low-capital intensive with low gestation periods and assured returns, suits a vast marginal class including landless farmers, low-skilled artisans and rural women with low opportunity cost of getting employed elsewhere. However, despite having high land productivities and generation-borne technical skill, artisanal silk industry is dwindling in West Bengal. The paper tries to focus on few pertinent issues of West Bengal’s silk industry where land-productivity is diminishing along with huge exodus of sericulture workers in the post globalisation era. Primary survey on Malda district of West Bengal exposes that cost of raw materials, loans taken by the artisans irrespective of its sources of collection and man-days creation for this vocation are significantly enhancing annual income flow generated by the sericultural family. In order to improvise this situation an effective institutional effort is required so that poor sericulture farmers can receive suf...

Productivity, 2020

Sericulture is a women intensive sector where 60% of the workers are either family workers or hir... more Sericulture is a women intensive sector where 60% of the workers are either family workers or hired female workers. Productive skill makes the presence of women invincible both in pre and post cocoon sectors. This larger participation is expected to raise their level of empowerment too. Higher level of empowerment is expected to induce the woman to usher improved productive technology. However field survey in Malda districts of West Bengal reveals a complete bleak picture. Neither productivity level, nor the empowerment level have reached the desired level, which calls for an immediate intervention and revision of policies.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

Sericulture is an important livelihood option in rural West Bengal providing employment to more t... more Sericulture is an important livelihood option in rural West Bengal providing employment to more than 1 lakh families in the rural and semi-urban areas. The productivity level of sericulture (land and leaf) is not low compared to that of the major silk producing states in the country, which opens further scope to research and analyse its productivity. This paper has explored several dimensions of its growth pattern during the planning periods of West Bengal. A field level survey in the major silk producing district of West Bengal has exposed few factors like household size and male hired labourers which are positively raising the level of average employment in the sericulture farms, while education level acts as a significant reducing factor, along with mandays involved with the activities. It implies sericulture is still only a popular livelihood activity among the backward people. On the other hand, small holding capacity of the rural farmers and poor economic condition of the artisans have been identified as major impediments in the path of development of sericulture in West Bengal. The rural moneylenders/ traders (dadani mahajan) utilizes this advantage and extracts a major part of the pay-off intruding into the supply chain of the industry. In the textile policy, the objective of the government always centres on the issues like extension of sericulture through acreage and production, ignoring the issues like 'economic-exploitation' faced by the artisanal classes at each level of value addition in the supply chain. In the absence of institutional apathy and well-linked credit system in the remote rural areas coupled with financial illiteracy of the rural artisans, the objective of development of artisanal silk industry in West Bengal seems to be far away.

Economic prosperity of a state depends upon the numbers of economic opportunities like, geographi... more Economic prosperity of a state depends upon the numbers of economic opportunities like, geographical advantages and location-specific conveniences. It also requires an entrepreneurial approach both from the ends of public and private sectors. Historical evidences witnessed that districts of North-Bengal in India have long been deprived from providing adequate support and security in successive planning. Uttar Dinajpur shares the same kind of misfortunes along with other districts of North-Bengal. It came into existence on 1992, after the bifurcation of erstwhile West-Dinajpur District and is one of the most backward districts in West Bengal where the degrees of backwardness grossly vary even across the blocks. This paper has portrayed the economic situations of the districts reflecting the economic potentials and addressed few multidimensional development issues across different blocks of the district and thereby expressing need of few specific policies to restructure the developmen...

Objectives: Sericulture, being low capital intensive, suits landless farmers and low-skilled arti... more Objectives: Sericulture, being low capital intensive, suits landless farmers and low-skilled artisans. This paper will focus on land productivity and technical efficiency of marginal artisanal classes and will measure their impact on income generation in the sericulture sector of West Bengal. Methods/Statistical analysis: Statistical analysis begins with analysis of income trends from raw silk at national and state level with the help of secondary level data. For primary survey four sericulture rich villages in Malda district has been chosen, where 60 silk-artisan households were selected using stratified random sampling for enquiring about their livelihood and income generation. Simple linear regression technique has been used using OLS method to estimate the statistical models based on apriori hypothesis. Results: The paper tests the statistical significance all income generating factors of the sericulture industry including land productivity, labour productivity, technological ef...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it dow... more Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it down through its gender promotional activities. There is bidirectional relationship between economic development and empowerment of women. Women empowerment, being dependent on complex sociological and economic issues, needs to be measured in terms of specific parameters like 'access to resources', 'decision making capability' and 'ability to take a stand'. This particular study develops an Index based on few sector-specific parameters to measure empowerment level of women engaged in Self Help Groups. Both 'individual empowerment index' and 'group empowerment indices' have been constructed, where'financial liberty', 'ability to take decisions', 'heath condition of the women and 'ability to stand up against the evils of the society' have been considered as her empowerment parameters. The index was applied on 300 SHG Group members of rural West Bengal, which provided us an idea about the existing level of rural women empowerment in West Bengal.

ANVESHAK-International Journal of Management, 2018

Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it dow... more Poverty ignites the societal gap between men and women, while economic development narrows it down through its gender promotional activities. There is bidirectional relationship between economic development and empowerment of women. Women empowerment, being dependent on complex sociological and economic issues, needs to be measured in terms of specific parameters like 'access to resources', 'decision making capability' and 'ability to take a stand'. This particular study develops an Index based on few sector-specific parameters to measure empowerment level of women engaged in Self Help Groups. Both 'individual empowerment index' and 'group empowerment indices' have been constructed, where'financial liberty', 'ability to take decisions', 'heath condition of the women and 'ability to stand up against the evils of the society' have been considered as her empowerment parameters. The index was applied on 300 SHG Group members of rural West Bengal, which provided us an idea about the existing level of rural women empowerment in West Bengal.