The Gazetteers Department

At the outset it is very necessary to make a clear distinction between the term standard of living and standard of life which are many a time mistaken to be synonymous terms. The former connotes the necessaries, the comforts and the luxuries to the consumption of which an individual or a family is accustomed, i.e., it indicates the present way of living of an individual or a family. As against this the term standard of life represents an ideal towards the achievement of which all efforts of an individual or a family are directed. The concept of standard of life is dynamic and changes from time to time with a change in the outlook of an individual or a family or with, the progress made in the field of scientific research. The ideal for the distant future may become a fact in the near future resulting in the creation of new concepts for both the standard of living and the standard of life.

The comparison between the standard enjoyed by the people in the past and the one enjoyed at present gives us an opportunity to judge whether people are better off or worse off today than what they were in the past. A detailed analysis of income, patterns of expenditure, price level, etc., over a period of past few years with the selection of a few particular normal years reflects a trend in the standard over a decade or so. However. such an analysis is not possible in view of the paucity of statistical data required for such a purpose.

The other method to judge whether the material conditions of the people in the district have improved or deteriorated, is to measure the economic prosperity of the district in monetary terms in relation to the fluctuations in the price level. Such an analysis would be purely of a general nature. The rise or fall in the district income with steady price levels would reflect the rise or fall in the standard of living in the district assuming even distribution of income and a fairly steady rate of employment during the period under study. The district income will, have to be computed in the same manner as the provincial or the national income. The statistics required to compute income of a small unit like a district would be more difficult to get than those required to compute the provincial or the national income. Hence, no attempt is made to study the relative standard of living of the people in the district on the above methods called the census of production and census of income method.

The following description of the patterns of income and expenditure in Yeotmal district is based upon a sample survey conducted in the district in 1966-67. Though the actual observations corroborate the conclusions regarding the standard of living of the people in the district in a particular year depicted in this the district, the families were grouped as under: —

The following method was adopted for the survey. The survey was conducted with household as a unit of sampling in certain areas typically representative of urban and rural characteristics. Based on the average annual income of a family of four units, giving due weightage to the economic conditions in the district, the families were grouped as under: —

GROUP I—Families with an annual income of Rs, 4,200 and over.

GROUP II—Families with an annual income of between Rs. 1,800 and Rs. 4,200.

GROUP III—Families with an annual income of below Rs. 1,800.

However this grouping has not been based upon the actual income of a family but has been based upon the income computed for a family with four units. The income was computed in the following manner. In case of a family with four adults and four minors making a total of six units and annual income of Rs. 4,800, the computed income for a four unit family comes to Rs. 3,200 and the family has been included in the second group on the basis of computed income rather than in the first group on the basis of actual income.

The income of a family was taken to represent earnings from all sources. Savings and indebtedness of a family were ascertained. The expenditure was grouped under the two heads, viz., monthly and annual. Under monthly expenditure was considered the expenditure incurred by a family on grocery, rent, lighting, domestic services, entertainment, education, etc. The annual expenditure consisted of the expenditure incurred on clothing", ornaments, charity, medical relief, travelling and social obligations, etc.

In Yeotmal district the survey was conducted at Bham, Kalam, Mahagaon, Ramgaon, Rameshwar and Yeotmal', besides a few other villages.

It is necessary to clarify here that two classes of families, the extremely rich and the extremely poor, have not been considered while analysing the family budgets, The extremely rich families have been dropped in view of the fact that their inclusion in the analysis would unnecessarily inflate the averages arrived at. The extremely poor families have been excluded as their inclus on would deflate the averages.

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