The Story of The Village Palampur

In the hypothetical village of Palampur all production activities are carried out with the help of natural resources, manmade items, human effort and money.

Road and transport system

• Palampur is well-connected with neighbouring villages and towns.
• The transport system in Palampur consists of bullock carts, tongas, bogeys and also, motor vehicles like motorcycles, jeeps, tractors and trucks

Housing and electricity system

• There are 450 families of which 80 belong to the upper caste and own major portion of land.
• Their houses are big and made of brick and plastered with cement.
• The SCs constitute one-third of the population and live in small mud and straw houses.
• Electricity is available at all houses and is used to power tubewells and small businesses.

Education and health centre

• There are two primary schools and one high school in Palampur.
• There is a government run primary health centre and one private owned health dispensary.

Organisation of Production

• Production aims at providing goods and services that people require.
• The four requirements or factors for production of goods and services are:
  • Land and other natural resources like water, forests, minerals, etc.
  • Some production activities require highly educated labour while others require labour that can do manual work.
  • Physical capital which includes fixed capital like tools, machines and buildings, working capital like raw materials and money and Human capital.

Farming in Palampur

• All the available land in Palampur is cultivated.
• Due to the well-developed system of irrigation, all farmers grow at least two and also, three different crops in a year.
• The high yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds were used in the Green Revolution in the late 1960s which led to greater yields of wheat and rice.

Will the land sustain?

• Scientific reports indicate that the modern farming methods have overused the natural resource base leading to a loss of soil fertility.

How is land distributed between the farmers of Palampur?

• Out of a total of 450 families, the dalits and some others who constitute one third of the population are landless.
• 240 families own plots less than 2 hectares in size and do not earn not sufficient income from them.
• 60 families are of medium and large farmers who cultivate more than 2 hectares of land.

Who will provide the labour?

• Small farmers cultivate their own fields and provide the labour for faming themselves.
• Medium and large farmers provide for labour required by hiring farm labourers.

The capital needed in farming

• Most small farmers borrow money from large farmers or moneylenders or inputs for cultivation from traders.
• The medium and large farmers arrange capital needed from their own savings.

Sale of Surplus Farm Products

• A major part of crops in the market are supplied by medium and large farmers.
• Large farmers save part of their earnings in banks and lend the money to small farmers. Some use their savings to buy cattle, trucks or to set up shops.
• Apart from farming, activities such as dairy, small scale industries, shopkeepers, transport are commonly seen. Some educated people have also started computer centers.