After dipping into negative growth in April, excise duty collections grew by 4.4 per cent in May helping the government mop up 12.8 per cent higher revenues at Rs 35,216 crore from indirect taxes, barring service tax, for the first two months of this fiscal. Data for service tax collections are available only for April and the collection under this head grew by a whopping 40 per cent at Rs 6,093 crore in that month, according to an official release here. Excise duty collections grew by 0.9 per cent at Rs 15,993 crore for the first two months of this fiscal compared to same period last year, boosted by 4.4 per cent growth in May at Rs 9,583 crore against Rs 9,175 crore in the same month last year. For the month of April, collections under excise duty had fallen by 3.9 per cent to Rs 6,410 crore against Rs 6,673 crore in the same month last year. Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that meeting target of excise duty collections for this fiscal appeared to be a formidable task. Even excise duty collection growth in May fell short of the target of 8.8 per cent growth for the whole fiscal. Customs duty mop-up was up by 25.1 per cent for the first two months at Rs 19,223 crore. Collections under this head grew by 25.2 per cent at Rs 10,205 crore in May. Despite cut in customs duty on various items to tame inflation, the Government is hopeful of meeting the collection target under this head for this fiscal.

SENSEX

Sensex ended higher for second straight day Tuesday on the back of strong buying momentum in banking and realty stocks. Bouts of short covering and positive European market helped the up move. Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex closed at 15,730.20, up 334.38 points or 2.17 per cent. The index touched a high of 15,732.75 and low of 15,357.98. National Stock Exchange’s Nifty ended at 4662.55 up 90.05 points or 1.97 per cent. The index touched a high of 4664.05 and low of 4561.75. BSE Midcap Index ended 1.80 per cent higher at 6,413.01 and BSE Smallcap Index closed 1.58 per cent up at 7789.95. Biggest Sensex gainers were Maruti Suzuki (up 6.46%), HDFC (6.41%), ONGC (5.79%), HDFC Bank (5.09%), State Bank of India (4.57%) and Larsen & Toubro (4.4%). Satyam Computer (down 0.9%), Reliance Communications (0.77%), Bharti Airtel (0.67%), Grasim Industries (0.08%) and Mahindra & Mahindra (0.02%) were the losers. Market breadth was positive on the BSE with 1801 advances and 884 declines. In Europe, FTSE 100 was up 1.57%, DAX 30 gained 1.32 per cent and CAC 40 moved 0.89 per cent higher

NSSO REPORT

MORBIDITY, HEALTH CARE AND THE CONDITION OF THE AGED
(JANUARY – JUNE 2004)

Report No. 507 on “Morbidity, Health Care and the Condition of the Aged” based on the 60th round of National Sample Survey (NSS) carried out during January to June 2004 by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, has been released. At the request of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, these subjects were taken up during the NSS 60th round along with the regular subjects of household consumer expenditure and employment-unemployment.
2. The NSS made its first attempt to collect information on morbidity during October 1953 - March 1954 (NSS 7th round). This maiden attempt and the subsequent three surveys (NSS 11th to 13th rounds) on the subject carried out during the years 1956 and 1958 were exploratory in nature and aimed to evolve an appropriate data collection method for studying morbidity profile in India. However, a full-scale survey on morbidity was conducted for the first time during October 1973 - June 1974 in the 28th round of NSS. Since then, collection of data on morbidity became a part of the decennial surveys on social consumption carried out in NSS 35th (July 1980 - June 1981), 42nd (July 1986 - June 1987) and 52nd rounds (July 1995 - June 1996).
3. The present report for the NSS 60th round is based on the ‘Central sample’ data collected by the NSSO. The enquiry covered the curative aspects of the general health care system in India, utilization of health care services provided by the public and private sector and the expenditure incurred by the households for availing these services. In addition, information on the condition and problems of the aged persons was also collected.
4. The survey was spread over 4,755 villages and 2,668 urban blocks covering 73,868 households across the country. Some important findings from the survey are presented in this note.
Morbidity and Health Care

· Number of persons reporting ailment during a period of 15 days prior to the date of survey per 1000 persons was 88 in the rural areas and 99 in the urban areas. The proportions were marginally higher among the women as compared to men both in the rural and urban areas.

· The proportion of ailing persons (PAP) per 1000 increased with the age of the person, it being 72 for rural and 79 for urban for the children in the age group 0-14 years and 283 for rural and 368 for urban for the persons aged 60 years or more.
· The proportion of persons reporting commencement (PPC) of any ailment during last 15 days per 1000 persons was about 45 for both rural and urban. The PPC is higher for both the children (54 for rural and 59 for urban) and for aged persons (68 for rural and 55 for urban) as compared to other age-groups.

· Percentage of the spells of ailments that got medically treated was 82 and 89 per cent for rural and urban respectively.

· Among the reasons for not getting the ailment treated, the reason ‘ailment not considered serious’ was the most common single reason both among the rural (32 per cent) and urban (50 per cent) persons.

· About 23 persons in rural and 31 persons in urban per 1000 persons in the country reported being hospitalized during the last 365 days prior to the date of survey and the incidence rates were almost the same for both sex.

· About 58 per cent of the hospitalised cases in the rural areas and 62 per cent in the urban areas were treated in the private hospitals and the rest in the government hospitals. A similar trend but a predominant use of private health facilities was observed for treatment of ailments not amounting to hospitalisation (rural - 78 per cent, urban - 81 per cent).

· The average duration of hospitalized treatment was higher in the case of government hospital (rural – 10.9 days; urban – 10.8 days) than that in the case of private hospital (rural – 8.3 days; urban – 7.3 days).

· The average medical expenditure in the case of non-hospitalised treatment during a period of last 15 days had been Rs. 257 in the rural and Rs. 306 in the urban areas. This expenditure was higher in the case of males (rural - Rs. 275; urban - Rs. 322) than that in the case of females (rural - Rs. 240; urban - Rs. 291).

· The average medical expenditure per hospitalisation during a period of last 365 days was estimated as Rs. 5,695 in the rural and Rs. 8,851 in the urban areas. The average expenditure in the case of hospitalisation of male member was a little more (rural - Rs. 5,946; urban - Rs. 9,535) than those on females (rural - Rs. 5,406; urban - Rs. 8,112).

· The average total expenditure per hospitalised treatment that included the medical expenditure as well as other incidental expenditure such as traveling cost, lodging charges, etc., of other members of the household accompanying the ailing person, was estimated from the survey as Rs. 6,225 in the rural areas and Rs. 9,367 in the urban areas. The average amount of this expenditure in government hospitals was Rs. 3,238 in the rural and Rs. 3,877 in the urban areas which was much lower than that in private hospitals (rural - Rs. 7,408; urban – Rs.11,553).

Immunisation of Children Aged 0 –4 Years

· Among the children of age 0-4 years, around 89 per cent in the rural and 94 in the urban areas received any immunisation during a period of 365 days.

· The average expenditure incurred on receiving immunisation during a period of last 365 days was estimated at Rs. 19.90 in the rural (boys– Rs. 22.30; girls– Rs. 17.40) and Rs. 113.40 in the urban areas (boys– Rs. 109.20; girls– Rs. 118.30).

Pregnancy, Childbirth & Maternity Care

· About 13 per cent of the women of child-bearing age 15-49 years were pregnant any time during a period of last 365 days prior to the date of survey in the rural areas as compared to 11 per cent in the urban areas.

· About 72 per cent of the rural and 69 per cent of the urban pregnant women in the child-bearing age-group delivered a child.

· As high as 65 per cent of the deliveries were non-institutional in the rural as compared to 26 per cent in the urban areas.

· About 18 per cent of the total childbirths in the rural areas and 31 per cent in the urban areas took place in the Government hospitals.

· The average expenditure per rural childbirth was estimated at Rs. 1,169, which was considerably lower than the expenditure of Rs. 2,806 in the urban areas. Moreover, average expenditure on childbirth in government hospital (Rs. 1165 in the rural and Rs. 994 in the urban) was much lower than in the private hospitals (rural – Rs. 4,137; urban – Rs. 5,480).

· About 70 per cent of the rural and 84 per cent of the urban pregnant women in the child-bearing age-group availed of any antenatal care services.

· In the case of post-natal care services, 63 per cent of the rural mothers in the rural areas and 73 per cent of the urban mothers availed of these services.

· The average expenditure for the antenatal care and post-natal care services in the rural areas was Rs. 499 and Rs. 402, respectively. The corresponding average expenditure in the urban areas was Rs. 905 and Rs. 595, respectively.

Condition of the Aged (60 yrs. or more)

· Around 7 per cent of the Indian population was aged, i.e., persons of age 60 years and above.

· The old-age dependency ratio (proportion of aged persons per 1000 persons in the age-group 15-59 years) was much higher in the rural areas (125) than in the urban areas (103).

· The sex-ratio among the aged was much higher in the urban (1046) than in the rural (985) areas.

· About 58 per cent of the aged persons, in both rural and urban, lived with their spouse and 32 per cent lived with their children only. About 5 per cent of the aged in rural and 4 per cent in urban lived alone.

· About 67 per cent of the aged in rural and 64 per cent in urban depended on others for their day-to-day maintenance.

· Among the economically dependent aged, about 78 per cent in rural and 76 per cent in urban were dependent on their children and 13 per cent in rural and 15 per cent in urban on their spouse.

· The proportions of the aged persons who could not move or were confined to bed were 7.7 per cent in the rural and 8.4 per cent in the urban areas.

BANKING STOCKS WORST HIT

Banking stocks were badly battered yet again , with the BSE Bankex shedding 171 points or 2.43 per cent from its previous day’s close. Over the last week, the index has shed 7.23 per cent and over the last month, 19.38 per cent.
Three banking stocks in theSensex basket were amongst the worst performing stocks of the day. HDFC Bank dropped 4.46 per cent, ICICI shed 2.47 per cent and SBI fell 1.06 per cent. The other banking stocks that declined today were Andhra Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Federal Bank and Indian Overseas Bank.
The BSE Bankex has been underperforming the benchmark index, the Sensex, for more than a month now. So it is no surprise that most of the banking stocks today touched their 52-week lows. Among the stocks that recorded their new lows were ICICI Bank, SBI, Oriental Bank, Karnataka Bank, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, Allahabad Bank, Central Bank, IDBI Bank and Syndicate Bank.
Investors are uncertain as to what steps the RBI would take to rein in inflation, which is a major reason for investors wanting to exit the banking stocks. The macro-economic numbers do not look very good now. The main concerns with regard to the banking sector now are the rising rate of inflation and with PSU banks it is the moral hazard created by the recently announced farm loan waiver. With inflation on the rise, further tightening of interest rates cannot be ruled out in the near future

SURVEY ON TRIBAL POPULATION

A detailed survey of the Scheduled Tribes in the district will be conducted as part of preparing an integrated development project for tribal areas.
An official press release here on Monday said that the survey was being held State-wide to collect data containing even minute details about the tribal population. Despite huge allocations in Ninth and Tenth Five Year Plans for development of tribal areas, basic problems being faced by the tribal people could not be solved, the release said adding that the absence of a comprehensive data was thought to be a factor that affected effective utilisation of the funds.
The release said that the survey was planned to find out the real condition of the tribal habitats and resources in those areas. Details about Adivasi families and settlements would be collected in the survey. A district-level committee headed by District Collector Ishita Roy would supervise the survey, which would cover 35 panchayats and three municipalities in the district. Hundred survey teams would complete the survey in 10 days, it said adding that each team would collect information from 100 tribal families.
A district co-ordinator had been appointed for launching the survey. A 20-member survey committee would be formed in each of the panchayats to be covered by the survey.
There would be facilitators, observers and enumerators to do the survey work, the release said. A meeting of representatives of the panchayats and muncipalities concerned would be held at the Science Park June 5.