Competency Based Questions for Class 9 Economics Chapter 1 The Story of village Palampur

Question.1. Describe how Palampur is a well-developed village.
Answer.

1. Palampur is a well-developed village, where farming is the main activity but several other activities such as small-scale manufacturing, dairy, transport, etc—are also carried out on a limited scale.
2. The village is well-connected with neighbouring villages and towns. Raiganj, a big village, is very close to Palampur. An all-weather road connects the village to Raiganj and further on to the nearest small town of Shahpur. Many kinds of transport are available on this road.
3. Palampur has about 450 families. So upper caste families own the majority of land in the village. Their houses are made of brick with cement plastering.
4. Most of the houses in the village have electric connections. Electricity powers all the tubewells in the fields and is used in various types of small business.
5. Palampur has two primary health centre run by the government and one private dispensary where the sick are treated. Thus, Palampur has fairly well-developed system of roads, transport, electricity, irrigation, schools and health centre.

Question.2. What is the aim of production? What are the requirements for production of goods and services? Describe each of them
Answer. The aim of production is to produce the goods and services that we want. There are four requirements for production of goods and services:

1. Land: No production activity can take place without land. It is the basic requirement. Other natural resources such as water, forests, minerals are also equally important.
2. Labour: Labour means people who will do the work. Some production activities require highly educated workers to perform the necessary tasks. Other activities require workers who can do manual work. Each worker is providing the labour necessary for production.
3. Physical Capital: Physical capital means the variety of inputs required at every stage during production. Tools, machines, buildings can be used in production over many years and are called fixed capital. Raw material and money in hand are called working capital. Unlike tools, machines and buildings, these are used up in production.
4. Human Capital: It is the fourth but the most important requirement for production of goods and services. We need knowledge and enterprise to be able to put together land, labour and physical capital and produce an output either to use ourselves or to sell in the market.

Question.3. How do chemical fertilisers adversely affect the soil, groundwater, lakes and rivers? What were the effects of use of chemical fertilisers in the state of Punjab?
Answer.

1. Chemical fertilizers provide minerals which dissolve in water and are immediately available to plants. But these may not be retained in the soil for long. They may escape from the soil and pollute groundwater, rivers and lakes.
2. Chemical fertilizers can also kill bacteria and other micro-organisms in the soil. This means some time after the use, the soil will be less fertile than ever before.
3. The consumption of chemical fertilizers in Punjab is highest in the country. The continuous use of chemical fertilizers has led to degradation of soil health.
4. In order to maintain the same production level, the farmers in Punjab use more and more chemical fertilizers and other inputs. This has not only lowered the quality of the crops but also the quality of the soil.

Question.4. What can be done so that more non- farm production activities can be started in village?
Answer. In India, farming is the main production activity in village. However, steps have been taken to encourage non-farming activities in the village. these include:

1. Electricity supply needs to be made on regular basis . This will help in setting up small scale unit which use machine and tools for production.
2. settings up schools and colleges in the village. This will help in imparting education of the rural population to make them employable resources.
3. Settings up vocational courses in the field of electrician, plumber , carpenter,etc
4. Imparting computer courses to the village people . This will help them in learning modern means of communication.
5. Improving road and rail infrastructures across all districts of India. Read will help in carrying out production activity by transporting raw material and finished goods.

Question.5. What are the fiver equirements for production of goods and services ?
Answer. The five requirements are as below:

1. land:It includes land and others natural resources like water ,forest , mineral.
2. Labour: People who will do the wrok. Labour is both skills and unskilled. Skilled labour is required for technical tasks and unskilled labour is required for manual and nontechnical work.
3. Physical capital: It includes tools , machine, buildings known as fixed capital.
4. Working capital: there is also requirement of raw material and money in hand which is known as working capital.
5. Human capital: There is need of knowledge and enterprise to be able to put together land , labour and physical capital to produce output . This requirement is met by entrepreneur, promoters or idea generator who carry the production activity for self.

Question.6. What is the pattern of land under cultivation in village Palampur in different seasons of the year?
Answer. In Palampur, all land is cultivated in all seasons of the year.

1. Summer season: water melon, moong
2. Rainy season: Kharif farmers grow Jowar and Bajra.
3. October to December : Potato is cultivated .
4. Winter season: Wheat is cultivated.
5. once every year: A part of the land is used for the production of sugarcane.

Question.7. “Without Human capital, the presense of natural resources and physical capital are of no use”. Justify the statement with example.
Answer. The human capital is indirectly and directly related with natural resources and physical capital. For modification of any natural resources to needed or valuable things physical capital or labour is needed, and to inspire or increase labour, human capital or money is needed. For example, we got the wheat as our natural resources and to modify it into a bread, industrial modification is needed which is operated by labour and machines made by humans by using their knowledge and skills.

Hence, we can conclude that it is knowledge and skills of human that helps in the formation of human capital, later it helps in further development of Natural resources.

Question.8. ” Green revolution became a boon as well as ban to the country”. Justify the statement by giving examples.
Answer. Yes, Green revolution became a boon for us.

• It solved the problem of food shortage in India. It gave more yield from a small piece of land and helped the farmers to gain more income than earlier. Well irrigation facilities helped many people to grow crops throughout the year rather than depending on monsoon.
• But at the same time it became ban. As the HYV seeds demand modern equipments small farmers cant afford it.
• The excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides pollute the soil by killing the bacteria and also pollute the ground water.
• Due to intense farming the soil will lost its fertility which further demands more chemical fertilizers. As we seen in the case of Punjab and Haryana

Question.9. When the land gets distributed among the people it leads to decrease in the production of crops? Give examples with reference to The story of village Palampur.
Answer. Yes, when the land gets distributed among the people it leads to decrease in the production of crops. As we had seen in the case of Gobind.

• He had 2.25 hectares of land, which he uses to cultivate with the help of his three sons. But after Govinda’s death the land has been distributed among the sons of Govinda each one having 0.75 hectares in size.
• With improved irrigation facilities they cant able to make a living from it instead they have to search for other additional works to meet their needs.