ECONOMIC TRENDS

section i-STANDARD OF LIVING

Before describing the standard of living prevailing in the district it is essential to explain the connotation of the term ' standard of living' and distinguish it from the term ' standard of life' with which it is sometimes synonymously used. The term ' standard of living ' represents the necessaries, the comforts and the luxuries to the consumption of which an individual or a family is accustomed to, while the term ' standard of life' represents what an individual or a family would aspire for. In effect ' standard of living' indicates what an individual or a family actually has at a particular moment of time as against the standard of life which represents an ideal towards the achievement of which the efforts of an individual or a family will be directed. The concept of standard of living is dynamic and changes from time to time. This change is resultant of the forces such as the change in the outlook of a particular individual or a family and the strides made in the field of scientific research and such other factors that revolutionise the fabric of human demand and the characteristics of the propensity to consume. Thus it appears that what is an ideal for the distant future becomes a fact in the near future and ultimately results in the creation of a new concept for both the standard of living as also the standard of life.

The concept of standard of living is a relative one and it envisages a comparison between the present and the past based upon a detailed analysis of income, expenditure, price level, etc. spread over a period of the past ew years and by the selection of some particular normal years with a view to ascertaining whether people are better off or worse off today than what they were in the past. However, the difficulties encountered in obtaining the detailed statistical data required for such a purpose prevents analysis on such an elaborate scale.

The other way to judge the standard of living of the people in the district is to view it as reflected in the economic prosperity of the district measured in monetary terms. Such an analysis is of a general nature, the rise or fall in the district income alongwith the price levels reflecting the relative rise or fall in the standard of living in the district. This method of judging the standard of the people is based upon the presumption that there is an even distribution of income and a fairly steady rate of employment during the period under study. To calculate the district income, the same methods are used that are adopted for calculating the provincial or the national income. But here also is encountered the same difficulty regarding the availability of statistical data. The nature of statistics required for the computation of the district income is more difficult to get than that which is required to compute the provincial or the national income.

Thus it will be seen that it is neither possible to compare the standard of living prevailing over a period of a few years or by the selection of normal years, nor it is possible to judge the standard as is reflected by the economic prosperity of the district measured in monetary terms. Hence no attempt is made to study the relative standard of living of the people in the district. The old Gazetteer of Wardha district published in 1906 elaborates the material conditions of the people in those times which is reproduced below.

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