Pattern and levels of income among loan waiver beneficiary households in Punjab

After a major change of 1991 in the Indian economy, there is a significant structural change not only in India but also in Punjab. Productivity in agriculture has reached its peak in Punjab and now the whole agriculture sector is burdened with the crisis of stagnation, overcapitalization, indebtedness, etc. Now it would be interesting to know the pattern and levels of income. This paper is an attempt to analyze the pattern and levels of income among loan waiver beneficiary households in Punjab using primary data of 318 households. The average household income of loan waiver beneficiary households was 229072.38, while it was the highest in Mansa district, followed by Ludhiana district and Hoshiarpur district. The study found that nearly 81 percent of the total income of households comes from agricultural sources and remaining from non-agricultural sources. Further huge inequalities of income were observed among beneficiary households. Inter-district inequalities showed that the Hoshiarpur district had minimum inequalities of income.