Economics of Gur Khadsari Enterprise in Punjab-A study of an Agro-based Industry

Agricultural sector can be rightly called upon as the mother and the caretaker of all the major and minor sectors. The rural agrobased industries were the effective means to absorb rural population that was either unemployed or under-employed. To study the socio-economic profile of entrepreneurs engaged in gur khandsari as agro-based village industries and to analyze the economics of gur khandsari enterprise, the study was conducted in Fatehgarh district of Punjab state. From 40 villages falling in the districts, 15 entrepreneurs of gur khandsari enterprise were found. These were categorized into different farm categories according to their agricultural land ownership. The study revealed that all the entrepreneurs were male and their average age was 44.33 year. Average agricultural land ownership of 15 entrepreneurs was 6.83 acres and average limit of credit was 3.39 lakh. Capital investment was highest for entrepreneurs who had small farms (293700). Annual net returns were found highest (112492) in the case of semimedium farm entrepreneurs. By investing one rupee on fixed and variable resources of gur khandsari enterprise, earned an amount of 1.27 on an average in Punjab as is indicated by the output-capital ratio in gur khandsari. This shows that there were net earnings of rupee 0.18 which came to be 16.69 percent of total earning and remaining 83.31 percent was the total cost on an average of Punjab. Similarly, benefit cost ratio at both variables and fixed costs were 0.27 and 0.18 respectively. The average payback period of gur khandsari enterprise was 2.13 year.