Case Study Questions for Class 9 Economics Chapter 1 The Story of Village Palampur
Case Study Question 01
Read the given extract and Answer the questions that follow:
Kishora is farmer labourer. Like other such labourers, Kishora found it difficult to meet his family’s needs from the wages that he received. A few years back Kishora took a loan from the bank . This was under a government programme which was giving cheap loans to poor landless household. Kishora bought a buffalo with this money . He now sells the buffalo’s milk. Further, he has attached a wooden cart to his buffalo and uses it to transport various items, once a week, he goes to the river Ganga to bring back clay for the Potter.
(i.) What is Kishore’s fixed capital?
Answer. Kishore’s fixed capital is buffalo.
(ii) What do you think would be his working capital?
Answer. His working capital would be buffalo’s milk.
(iii) In how many Production activities is Kishore Involved?
Answer. Kishore’s is involved in Three production activities , primary activities (selling buffalo’s milk), second activities (bring clay for Potter) and tertiary activities (transporter).
Case Study Question 02
Read the given extract and Answer the questions that follow:
Kareem has opened a computer class center in the village. In recent years a large number of students have been attending college in Shahpur town. Kareem found that a number of students from the village are also attaching computer classes in the town. There were two women in the village who had a degree in computer applications. He decided to employ them. He bought computer and set up the classes in the front room of their house overlooking the market .High school students have started attending them in good numbers.
(i) Where is open karem a computer class center?
Answer. Kareem has opened a computer class center in the village.
(ii) In what ways is Kareem’s capital and labour different from Mishrilal?
Answer. Kareem’s capital is invested in computer which is technologically advanced as compared to Mishrilal sugarcane crushing machine. Also Kareem hired educated and skilled person for teaching in his computer institute.
(iii) Why didn’t someone start a computer center earlier? Discuss possible reasons.
Answer. Computer center are not started earlier due to lack of skilled labour in the village. Also the awareness of the village people about computer was less.
Case Study Question 03
Read the given extract and Answer the questions that follow:
Mishrilal has purchased a mechanical sugarcane crushing machine run on electricity and has set it up on his field. Sugarcane crushing was earlier done with the help of bullocks , but people prefer to do it by machines these days. Mishrilal also buys sugarcane from other farmers and process it into jaggery. The jaggery is then sold to traders at Shahpur. In the process Mishrilal makes a small profit.
(i) Who provide the labour in this case?
Answer. In this case, landless farmers are used as labour for the jaggery manufacturing.
(ii) Could you think of any reasons when he might face a loss.
Answer. He might face a loss when sugarcane become expensive due to had crop. Also if he does not regular electricity supply, he will not be able to use machine for crushing purposes which might results in loss.
(iii) Why does Mishrilal sell his jaggery to traders in Shahpur and not int this village?
Answer. Mishrilal sells his jaggery to traders in Shahpur because of good pricing he can get from the traders. Otherwise also in villages, consumption is not much.
Case Study Question 04
Read the given extract and Answer the questions that follow:
Not all Villages in India have such high levels of irrigation. Apart from the riverine plains, coastal regions in our country are well-irrigated. In contrast, plateau regions such as the Deccan plateau have low levels of irrigation. Of the total cultivated area in the country a little less than 40 per cent is irrigated even today. In the remaining areas, farming is largely dependent on rainfall.
(i) The Deccan plateau has low levels of irrigation. Give reasons.
Answer. The Deccan plateau has low level of irrigation because the Deccan plateau is situated in the leeward side of the south-west monsoon. The Western ghats act as a barrier to the south-west monsoon as a result of which the western part of the Western Ghats receives maximum rain and eastern part of Western Ghats remains dry due to lack of moisture in the air where the Deccan plateau is situated.
(ii) How electricity helped in the development of irrigation in palampur?
Answer. Earlier people of palampur used Persian wheels to draw water from the wells and tube wells to cultivate the crops. But after the introduction of electricity people saw that the electric run tubewells irrigate much larger area of land than earlier.
Case Study Question 05
Read the given extract and Answer the questions that follow:
Savita is a small farmer. She plans to cultivate wheat on her 1 hectare of land. Besides seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, she needs cash to buy water and repair her farm instruments. She estimates that the working capital itself would cost a minimum of Rs 3,000. She doesn’t have the money, so she decides to borrow from Tejpal Singh, a large farmer. Tejpal Singh agrees to give Savita the loan at an interest rate of 24 per cent for four months, which is a very high interest rate. Savita also has to promise to work on his field as a farm labourer during the harvest season at Rs 35 per day. As you can tell, this wage is quite low. Savita knows that she will have to work very hard to complete harvesting on her own field, and then work as a farm labourer for Tejpal Singh. The harvest time is a very busy time. As a mother of three children she has a lot of household responsibilities. Savita agrees to these tough conditions as she knows getting a loan is difficult for a small farmer.
(i) On what terms did Savita get a loan from Tejpal singh? Would Savita’s condition be different if she could get loan from the bank at a low rate of interest?
Answer. Tejpal Singh charged high intrest rate also asked Savita to work on his field as a farm labourer during the harvest season at Rs 35 per day. This is very low wage. Yes.
(ii) How do small farmers arrange capital? How is it different from big and rich farmers?
Answer. Small farmers like Savita borrow money from the big farmers or moneylenders like Tejpal Singh who charges high interest rate, which they cant pay back easily. While the big farmers arrange the capital from their own Savings from farming and surplus production.
Case Study Question 06
Read the given extract and Answer the questions that follow:
Dala is a landless farm labourer who works on daily wages in Palampur. This means he must regularly look for work. The minimum wages for a farm labourer set by the government is Rs. 300 (March, 2019) per day, but Dala gets only Rs. 160. There is heavy competition for work among the farm labourers in Palampur, so people agree to work for lower wages. Dala complains about his situation to Ramkali, who is another farm labourer. Both Dala and Ramkali are among the poorest people in the village.
(i) Why Dala must regularly look for work?
Answer. Dala is a landless labourer who works on daily wages.
(ii) What is the minimum wages of labours fixed by the government?
Answer. The minimum wages of labourers fixed by government is 300 rupees per day.
(iii) Why there is wide variation in the duration of employment?
Answer. Agricultural is a seasonal activity, sowing and harvesting are the only peak times that need labourers.
(iv) Apart from cash what are the other ways the laboure gets paid wages.
Answer. Apart from cash grains and meals are other forms of wages paid to the labourers.
