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Introduction

A number of methods are used to estimate the total economic activity in a country or a region. Some of the commonly used measures of regional income and output are:

  • Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
  • Gross National Product (GNP)
  • Net National Income (NNI)

These measures are for the most part limited to counting goods and services that are exchanged for money: production not for sale but for barter, for one's own personal use, or for one's family, is largely left out of these measures, although some attempts are made to include some of those kinds of production by imputing monetary values to them.

In order to count a good or service it is necessary to assign some value to it. The value that all of the measures discussed here assign to a good or service is its market value – the price it fetches when bought or sold. No attempt is made to estimate the actual usefulness of a product.

Some useful terms


Gross: Total product, regardless of the use to which it is subsequently put.
Net: Gross minus the amount that must be used to offset depreciation – ie., wear-and-tear of the nation's fixed capital assets. "Net" gives an indication of how much product is actually available for consumption or new investment.
Domestic: The term domestic implies that the  boundary is geographical: we are counting all goods and services produced within the country's borders, regardless of by whom it is produced.
National: The term national implies that the boundary is defined by citizenship (nationality). We count all goods and services produced by the nationals of the country (or businesses owned by them) regardless of where that production physically takes place.The output of a America-owned cotton factory in India counts as part of the Domestic figures for India, but the National figures of America.

From the above it is clear that while GDP is product produced withing the nation's borders, GNP would be the product produced by the citizens of the country or region. Similarly "Net" products for both national and domestic boundaries can be defined. The income of a particular state may be referred to as the State Domestic Product which is similar to the Gross Domestic Product.

There are three main methods of calculating GDP, they are as follows:

1) Expenditure Method

In contemporary economies, most things produced are produced for sale. Therefore, measuring the total expenditure of money used to buy things is a way of measuring production. This is known as the expenditure method of calculating GDP. Note that if you knit yourself a sweater, it is production but does not get counted as GDP because it is never sold. Sweater-knitting is a small part of the economy, but if one counts some major activities such as child-rearing (generally unpaid) as production, GDP ceases to be an accurate indicator of production.

GDP (Y) is a sum of Consumption (C), Investment (I), Government Spending (G) and Net Exports (X - M).

Y = C + I + G + (X − M)


Explanation:
C (consumption): It is normally the largest GDP component in the economy, consisting of private (household final consumption expenditure) in the economy. These personal expenditures fall under one of the following categories: durable goods, non-durable goods, and services. Examples include food, rent, jewelry, gasoline, and medical expenses but does not include the purchase of new housing.
I (investment): It includes business investment in equipments and does not include exchanges of existing assets. Examples include construction of a new mine, purchase of software, or purchase of machinery and equipment for a factory. Spending by households (not government) on new houses is also included in Investment. In contrast to its colloquial meaning, 'Investment' in GDP does not mean purchases of financial products. Buying financial products is classed as 'saving', as opposed to investment. This avoids double-counting: if one buys shares in a company, and the company uses the money received to buy plant, equipment, etc., the amount will be counted toward GDP when the company spends the money on those things; to also count it when one gives it to the company would be to count two times an amount that only corresponds to one group of products. Buying bonds or stocks is a swapping of deeds, a transfer of claims on future production, not directly an expenditure on products.
G (government spending): It is the sum of government expenditures on final goods and services. It includes salaries of public servants, purchase of weapons for the military, and any investment expenditure by a government. It does not include any transfer payments, such associal security or unemployment benefits.
X (exports) represents gross exports. GDP captures the amount a country produces, including goods and services produced for other nations' consumption, therefore exports are added.
M (imports): represents gross imports. Imports are subtracted since imported goods will be included in the terms G, I, or C, and must be deducted to avoid counting foreign supply as domestic.
Note that C, G, and I are expenditures on final goods and services; expenditures on intermediate goods and services do not count. (Intermediate goods and services are those used by businesses to produce other goods and services within the accounting year.)

2) Income Method

Another way of measuring GDP is to measure total income. If GDP is calculated this way it is sometimes called Gross Domestic Income (GDI), or GDP(I). GDI should provide the same amount as the expenditure method described above. (By definition, GDI = GDP. In practice, however, measurement errors will make the two figures slightly off when reported by national statistical agencies.)

Total income can be subdivided according to various schemes, leading to various formulae for GDP measured by the income approach. A common one is:

GDP = compensation of employees + gross operating surplus + gross mixed income + taxes less subsidies on production and imports

GDP = COE + GOS + GMI + T - S

Compensation of employees (COE): It measures the total remuneration to employees for work done. It includes wages and salaries, as well as employer contributions to social security and other such programs.
Gross operating surplus (GOS): It is the surplus due to owners of incorporated businesses. Often called profits, although only a subset of total costs are subtracted from gross output to calculate GOS.
Gross mixed income (GMI): It is the same measure as GOS, but for unincorporated businesses. This often includes most small businesses.

The sum of COE, GOS and GMI is called total factor income; it is the income of all of the factors of production in society. It measures the value of GDP at factor (basic) prices. The difference between basic prices and final prices (those used in the expenditure calculation) is the total taxes and subsidies that the government has levied or paid on that production. So adding taxes less subsidies on production and imports converts GDP at factor cost to GDP(I).

Market output is defined as that which is sold for "economically significant" prices; economically significant prices are "prices which have a significant influence on the amounts producers are willing to supply and purchasers wish to buy." An exception is that illegal goods and services are often excluded even if they are sold at economically significant prices (Australia and the United States exclude them).

This leaves non-market output. It is partly excluded and partly included. First, "natural processes without human involvment or direction" are excluded. Also, there must be a person or institution that owns or is entitled to compensation for the product. An example of what is included and excluded by these criteria is given by the United States' national accounts agency: "the growth of trees in an uncultivated forest is not included in production, but the harvesting of the trees from that forest is included."

Within the limits so far described, the boundary is further constricted by "functional considerations." The Australian Bureau for Statistics explains this: "The national accounts are primarily constructed to assist governments and others to make market-based macroeconomic policy decisions, including analysis of markets and factors affecting market performance, such as inflation and unemployment." Consequently, production that is, according to them, "relatively independent and isolated from markets," or "difficult to value in an economically meaningful way" [ie., difficult to put a price on] is excluded. Thus excluded are services provided by people to members of their own families free of charge, such as child rearing, meal preparation, cleaning, transportation, entertainment of family members, emotional support, care of the elderly.


Services which are generally included:

  • Goods and services provided by governments and non-profit organisations free of charge or for economically insignficant prices are included. The value of these goods and services is estimated as equal to their cost of production.
  • Goods and services produced for own-use by businesses are attempted to be included. An example of this kind of production would be a machine constructed by an engineering firm for use in its own plant.
  • Renovations and upkeep by an individual to a home that she owns and occupies are included. The value of the upkeep is estimated as the rent that she could charge for the home if she did not occupy it herself. This is the largest item of production for own use by an individual (as opposed to a business) that the compilers include in GDP.
  • Agricultural production for consumption by oneself or one's household is included.
  • Services (such as chequeing-account maintenance and services to borrowers) provided by banks and other financial institutions without charge or for a fee that does not reflect their full value have a value imputed to them by the compilers and are included. The financial institutions provide these services by giving the customer a less advantageous interest rate than they would if the services were absent; the value imputed to these services by the compilers is the difference between the interest rate of the account with the services and the interest rate of a similar account that does not have the services. 
3)Value Added Method


Usually in this approach the producer units of an economy are classified into classes of industries: agriculture, construction, manufacturing, etc. Their outputs are estimated largely on the basis of surveys which businesses fill out, but also the services from dwellings owned by households are counted towards production. To avoid "double-counting" in cases where the output of a producer unit is not a final good or service, but serves as intermediate input into another producer unit, either only final goods and services outputs must be counted, or a "value added" approach must be taken, where what is counted is not the total value output of a producer unit, but its value added: the difference between the value of its gross output and the value of its intermediate consumption. 

Gross Value Added (GVA) = Sum of gross value added by all producer units = Gross output - intermediate consumption of goods and services to produce the output.

Depending on how gross value added has been calculated, it may be necessary to make an adjustment to it before it can be considered equal to GDP. This is because GDP is the market value of goods and services – the price paid by the customer – but the price received by the producer may be different than this if the government taxes or subsidises the product. For example, if there is a sales tax:

Producer's price + sales tax = market price

If taxes and subsidies have not already been computed as part of GVA, we must compute GDP as:

GDP = GVA + Taxes on products - Subsidies on products
The notes provided here are far from perfect. Please feel free to use the comments section to inform me about any additions or omissions that you may deem necessary.

A big thank you to wikipedia.
Land
Gujarat with an area of 1,96,024 sq.kms occupies the 7th rank in India. If the soil of Gujarat is studied from the geological point of view one finds that there are two main areas in Gujarat: the western boundary of Saurashtra peninsula and alluvial plains of North Gujarat. If these two areas are excluded then we find that Gujarat is made up of hills of volcanoes. There is a large area of alluvial fertile land in the state, the reason for it being rivers having roots in other states flowing into Gujarat bringing in a lot of alluvium. This is very benificial for the agricultural sector in the state. 

Problem of Saline Land
The problem of Saline land is not only found in Central Gujarat and the coastal areas of Kachchh but also in other areas. The main reason for spread of salts in the land is that as most of the rivers of Saurashtra and North Gujarat areas are not perennial rivers, water is not recharged. Moreover, as more quantity of underground salt is absorbed, according to one estimate, salty water of sea has spread to about 1,65,000 hectares. As a result about 13 lakh farmers are adversely affected. Due to spread of salts in the land, more than 800 villages of the state are affected. The farmers of Gujarat are incurring huge financial losses due to damage to crops. In these circumstances, there have been successful attempts to bring up the water levels through check dams, due to which spread of salt in the land will be prevented and targets of agricultural production will be achieved.

Forests
The area of Gujarat under forest cover (7.46% in 2007) is substantially lower than the area under forest cover in the rest of the country (21.02%). The densest forest coverage in Gujarat is found in the Dangs district (80.42%) and the lowest in Rajkot (1.32%).
The main forest products are wood used in building works and wood for fuel, while the sub products are mangoes, seeds of karinji, fruits like Jambu, grass, bamboos, gum, honey, Aritha, Amla, timru leaves, oil seeds etc.

Rivers
Geologically Gujarat can be divided into two main regions: main land and peninsula. Accordingly, the rivers flowing in the state are: 

Mainland
Main rivers: Sabarmati, Narmada, Tapi, Mahi. These are perennial rivers and meet the Gulf of Khambhat.
Other Rivers: Banas, Kolak, Saraswati, Rupen Par, Damanganga, Auranga, Poorna Ambika, Kim, Dhadhar, Mindhola, Khari, Vatrak, Vishwamitri, Meshwa etc.

Peninsula (Saurashtra and Kachchh)
Rivers flow near the hills of Thanga, Mandav and Sardhar.
Rivers like Shetrunji, Bhadar, Aji, Demi, Machchhu, Ojat, Bhogavo, Kalubhar, Ghelo, Saraswati, Khari, Rangholi etc.

The rivers flowing in peninsula are small, shipping is not possible in them. These rivers flow either towards the Arabian sea or the Gulf of Khambhat or the Desert of Kutch. During the monsoon these rivers are full of water while there is a severe shortage of water during the summer.
Location
Coordinates: 20.1° and 24.7°N Latitudes
                    68.4° and 74.4°E Longtitudes
To the north-west: International Border with Pakistan
To the west: The Arabian Sea
To the south/south-west: Maharashtra
To the east: Madhya Pradesh
To the north: Rajasthan

Natural Regions of Gujarat
The natural regions of Gujarat can be divided into two broad areas:
  1. Mainland Gujarat
  2. Peninsula
The Mainland consists of:
  • North Gujarat
  • Central Gujarat
  • Plains of South Gujarat
And the Peninsula consists of:
  • High Lands
  • Interior Plains
  • Coastal Saurashtra
There are three types of Mainland Gujarat: North Gujarat, Central Gujarat and the Plains of South Gujarat which are spread in the valley regions of Narmada, Mahi and Tapi rivers. These rivers flow from east to west and meet the Gulf of Khambhatt.
In the north-eastern region of mainland Gujarat, there are the Aravalli mountain regions, with heights of about 150 to 319 meters. These regions are spread up to the Narmada river in the south.
In the eastern side of mainland Gujarat, there are the Saputara mountain ranges, which have heights between150 and 243 mts. These regions separate Gujarat from the western Khandesh of Maharashtra and divides Narmada and Tapi into two parts. Tapi, Mahi, Sabarmati and Narmada rivers flow through the alluvial plains of these mountain ranges. The alluvial plains are fragmented by small plateaus, four big rivers, the mountains and hills. 
Peninsular Gujarat can be divided into three parts: 1. High Lands, 2. Interior Plains and 3. Coastal Saurashtra Regions. In the central high lands, rivers Machhu, Shetrunji, Bhadar flow towards the Arabian Sea or the Gulf of Khambhatt. In the Northern part of Saurashtrathere are muddy plains which have come into existence due to the sea and also large areas of saline land.