Public Services in India

Public expenditure on various services to be provided either free or at a price below cost is one of the major functions of the government. These are financed by taxation with a view to provide and ensure ever increasing welfare of the people. However, in the modern times such expenditure on services by the State through mobilisation of resources by taxation has acquired another significance. These measures are now justified as a means of reducing the inequalities in distribution of consumption. It is therefore, important that an assessment of the effect of such public expenditure should take place from time to time. This book is one such effort for the state of West Bengal, India. In this analysis, it has been possible to include the public health, medical and education services and the services rendered by public distribution of essential commodities and make assessment of the redistributive effect of the indirect taxation and provision of these services, on the size distribution of consumption expenditure.

The author who is a double Post Graduate of Science and Statistics is currently employed as a System Analyst with the Indian Statistical Institute and also in a consultant to the Asian Regional Team for Employment Promotion, Asian Employment Programme of ILO. He has worked in various fields of applied economic interest. Apart from publishing a number of papers, the author has to his credit a book entitled ‘Expansion of Employment Through Local Resource Mobilisation: Study of a Cluster of Villages, in West Bengal’ published by International Labour Organization, Asian Employment Programme (ARTEP), Bangkok.