1116 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 28
calculate the elasticty of demand from information regarding
expenditure (and consumption in physical terms, where pos-
sible) of a large number of commodities and services which is
being collected every year by the National Sample Survey
(NSS) of India. In the NSS, the design of interpenetrating
net-work of sub-samples (IPNS) is always used providing at
least two independent estimates of each variate. It is, there-
fore, possible to estimate the elasticity of demand on the basis
of each sub-sample and also on the basis of the combined
sample of the twe sub-samples pooled together. Table A-2 in
the Appendix gives estimates of percentage increases in de-
mand over the five-year period of the Third Plan. The two
independent sub-sample estimates supply useful information
nn the margin of uncertainty of the estimates.
In a planned economy it is not possible to allow the supply
to increase with the demand without any restriction. It is
necessary to increase domestic savings by restricting the con-
sumption of non-essential or luxury goods. It is therefore ne-
cessary to impose excise and saies tax or controls on imports
or on production to bring about a balance between the planned
supply and the estimated demand.
Recently the method of fractile graphical analysis is being
used for estimating elasticities of demand for households having
different values of total per capita consumer expenditure (which
is a rough indicator of the level of living). This approach has
the great advantage of showing, in a very simple way, the
pattern of change of the elasticity of demand with a change
in the level of living. Analysis by fractile groups is particularly
useful in studying the effect of excise and sales tax in balancing
supplv and demand.
Perspective planning of man-power: It is only with the
help of skilled workers, technicians, technologists and engineers
that raw materials can be converted into machinery, electricity
and power which can then be used for the production of both
capital and consumer goods. A rapidly increasing supply of
"151 Mahalanobis IT - pag. 14
