Finances of Panchayats in West Bengal: Current State and Prospective Areas of Resource Generation

Dr. Kanak Kanti Bagchi (b. 1985) is currently Reader and Head, Department of Economics, North Bengal University, Darjeeling. He got his Masters degree (1980) and Ph. D. degree (1992) in Economics from North Bengal University. He has a wide teaching experience at undergraduate, postgraduate and research levels. He is also supervising research works of students for the award of M. Phil. and Ph. D. degrees. His main fields of interest are Agricultural Economics, Development Economics, Public Economics and Labour Economics. He has written several articles for books, journals, weeklies and dailies. He has written a textbook (with co-author) on Development Economics and Statistics for undergraduate students. He has also presented a number of articles at University, State and National level Workshops, Seminars and Conferences.

Tapan Kumar Ghosh is Reader in English at Tarakeswar Degree College, Burdwan University, West Bengal. He has had a distinguished academic career. He obtained Ph.D. for research on the fiction of Arun Joshi in 1993. His first book Arun Joshi’s Fiction: The Labyrinth of Life was published in 1996. A perceptive critic of Indian English literature, he has published scholarly articles on Rabindranath Tagore, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy, Shashi Tharoor, Mukul Kesavan and other writers. At present he is co-editing a critical volume on Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook.