Bhagirathi Panda

Act East Policy and Northeast India: The Role of Transaction Costs

Although the states in Northeast India were created on ethnic lines, today the developmental imperatives require that they have to emerge as a single economic entity. The region is yet to emerge as an integrated economic entity and the success and effective continuity of the AEP depends on reducing the transaction costs by emerging as an integrated economic unit. This is contingent on, inter alia, linking up with the expansion in the livelihood and employment opportunities which depend on the emergence of a strong regional and local economic base led by networked industry and a high end services sector. This finally is dependent on reducing the present level of high transaction costs which includes issues of property rights, transport costs, law and order, governance, rent seeking and corruption.

Urban Informal Manufacturing Sector in Orissa - A Case Study of Cuttack City

Promotion of the urban informal sector has become the new strategy of development in the developing economies. This paper attempts a study of some of the important characteristics of this sector in the city of Cuttack and compares it with that of the formal sector. The major strengths of this sector are its low capital requirement, higher employment generation capacity with lower amount of capital base and flexibility. Important weaknesses of this sector are, (i) its segmentation on the basis of industrial activities, employment size, capital base, pattern of linkages, and productivity levels and, (ii) its skewed employment structure of being an absolute domain for males. Specific policies for specific sectors of the IMS may be formulated to tackle the former. To overcome the latter, state can undertake some positive measures in the field of credit, training, skill formation and marketing to encourage more entry of women.