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Project Management In The Service Sector

• Category Management
• Subcategory Types of Management
• Topic Project Management

Defining a project

A project can be defined as a preliminary venture to produce a unique, service, product or outcome. Projects tend to have a definite beginning and ending with particular methodologies to follow. Once objectives have been achieved then the project can be closed out or ended (PMI, 2016).

Public and private Sector projects

“A public sector project (in the American system, although not limited to) can consist of Federal, State or Local Government agencies. Federal owners include the Department of Defense or Department of States while state owners are composed of any state public works department or governmental office. Local agencies are from cities, countries, and special districts such as schools, water treatment or transportation agencies” (Gasik, 2016).

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‘Profit’ is a key aspect separating public and private projects. Private project prioritize monterey value and gain having an extra emphasis on the control of cost. However, public projects need a lot more transparency due to accountability needed on behalf of taxpayers’ money. Scrutiny around the duration and turnaround time of public projects are often a factor due to its vast hierarchical nature. The term “lots of red tapes” is often associated with public projects due to its slowness and resistance to change with private projects being much more admirable due to cost-effective process systems and leaner innovative methodologies.

Some differences between private and public projects?

Public or Government projects are considered to have more unique attributes compared to the private sector. In order to manage these projects more efficient project management teams must recognize the following characteristic:

More extensive legal requirements on government projects

Generally, public projects are implicitly aligned to extensive legal requirements in comparison to private sector projects. Government bodies create regulations and laws that arguably restrict leadership. In overcoming these restrictions leadership needs to opt for clearances from an administrative or government body that has the authority to change or suppress these restrictions. If successful clearances will waiver these legal requirements however this is usually a very timely process (PMI, 2016).

Liability to the public

Public Resources

Public resources such as bonds and taxes usually fund government budgets, due to this project managers are obligated to comply with government criteria and applicable laws and regulations when leading a public project. This is important to show that the funds are being utilized to better provide for the public and citizens pockets it came from. Approvals and budgeting processes along with financial and scope mechanisms are put in place to monitor these budgetary standards. BCA “Benefits Cost Analysis” and ROI “Return on Investment” are very important in private projects however less of a focal point in public projects, is due to the measures being aimed more towards “how beneficial the project will be to the public?” rather than the revenue or costs accrued (Gasik, 2016).

Why do projects fail in the UAE?

There are many projects that are commissioned in UAE that fail. Almost 51 construction projects have been cancelled in 2017. After researching, “why projects fail in the UAE?” the following reasons can be drawn to:

Lack of standard project management methodology

Many organizations are not disciplined enough to embrace and follow a methodology correctly. Success rates of projects increase dramatically just by implementing proper project management best practices (Elbaz, 2015).

Poor communication

Many issues can derive from miscommunication between key stakeholders, especially when they are misinformed or uninformed about significant timings, deliverables, or problems related to the project. Without correct communication and mechanisms to streamline these updates, stakeholder expectations may not be achieved or properly interpreted. It is key that project managers are well trained in non-verbal, verbal, and written communication in order to avoid these issues (Elbaz, 2015).

Over-allocation

Over-allocation due to project schedules being generated with unaccountable resources can also hugely affect projects. By implementing software management programs or using a responsibility matrix (like RACI) project managers can allocate and level resources a lot easier essentially producing more accurate project plans giving their team members a better perspective of roles and jobs to be done (Elbaz, 2015).

Unorganised documentation

Documentation is vital in any project. Due to the overwhelming amounts of information and tasks to monitor, disasters can emerge if human memory is solely relied on. Project managers must embrace the often monotonous task of documenting issues, risks and challenges, meetings, and even telephone conversations. By not doing so information can be lost resulting in issues not being resolved accordingly or effectively (Elbaz, 2015).

Avoiding the use of logs

All projects will have their own set of risks, challenges, problems, and issues. In order to keep track of these issues consistent logs should be kept for every project. Keeping these logs will allow for ease of access to information stored in one place avoiding confusion and redundancy (Elbaz, 2015).

Lack of teamwork in planning

In order to better estimate and plan a project, project managers must promote teamwork with project specific or subject matter experts. Working through Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) or encouraging team-building exercises including project milestone gatherings can be crucial for the cohesion and functionality of a project team (Elbaz, 2015).

Poor risk management

Risk management can mean being proactive. However, in this region risk management is known to be sometimes overlooked and re-active. In order to prepare properly for risks, aspects of risk identification, assessment, and response planning are essential (Elbaz, 2015).

Too broad of a scope

Inexperienced project managers allow their project scopes to broaden sometimes without realizing it. A way to limit this problem is through proper planning and the hiring process essentially avoiding instances of “panic hire” whilst also offering training, coaching, and mentoring to junior project managers.

Lack of executive commitment

Ownership, responsibility, discipline, documentation, and many other aspects mentioned above are all big topics in project management. However, this is all sidelined if executives and senior managers are not showing commitment and support towards the cause. Project managers and project teams need to know that upper management will provide them with the support they need to apply their best efforts and abide by top notch project management practices.

Whether it be public or private based, a project can be subject to failure for many reasons being: lack of understanding of methodology or poor risk management, communication, resource allocation, and documentation. Even having a vague scope of roles and responsibilities, along with general lack of planning can have adverse effects on projects and the people involved in them. In order to avoid these pitfalls being disciplined, organized and thorough in assigning methodologies, allocating resources and logging important information can all be beneficial. Using tools such as the WBS and RACI with project teams and subject matter experts involved is also advised along with team building exercises and regular meet ups.

• Gasik. S (2016). Are public projects different than projects in other sectors? Preliminary results of empirical research. Retrieved from https://ac.els-cdn.com/S1877050916323432/1-s2.0-S1877050916323432-main.pdf?_tid=cf8b531a-5607-438b-8a09 92b66b0a486b&acdnat=1548514646_dd93a24aeca76ea9e9408c8fee214c7c
• Project Management Institute, Inc.. (2006). Government Extension to the PMBOK® Guide (3rd Edition). Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI). Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpGEPMBOKJ/government-extension/government-extension
• Elbaz. A, R (2015). Top 10 Reasons Why Projects Fail in the Middle East. Retrieved from https://www.meirc.com/articles/top-10-reasons-why-projects-fail-in-the-middle-east

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, community service essay sample.

Hey folks! I want to write a college essay about my community service experience. I'm not really sure where to start, though. Have any of you written similar essays or come across any good examples that might inspire me? Thanks!

Hello! Writing a college essay about community service can be a meaningful way to highlight your impact on others and your personal growth. To help you craft a compelling essay, here are a few tips and an example to get you started.

1. Narrate a specific experience: Instead of recounting all your community service experiences, focus on a single event or project that genuinely impacted you. Describe the project, the people you worked with, and your role within the group.

2. Demonstrate personal growth: Use your chosen experience to illustrate personal growth and development. Describe any challenges you faced, how you navigated them, and what you learned from the experience.

3. Show, don't tell: Use vivid details and anecdotes to bring your story to life. Rather than saying you developed leadership skills, describe a moment in your community service when you had to step up and lead or support your peers through a challenge.

4. Make connections: Reflect on how this community service experience has shaped your values or goals. Connecting your experience to your aspirations helps show how it has influenced your college or career ambitions.

Here's an example to help inspire your own essay:

"During my junior year, I joined a volunteer group to help revitalize a local park. Our group consisted of diverse members, ranging from middle school students to retired professionals. Initially, I was hesitant to engage with the others, fearing the generational gaps. However, as I worked alongside them, I realized that everyone shared the common goal of restoring the park, and together, we overcame the limitations that our age differences posed.

One Saturday, rain unexpectedly poured down, jeopardizing the progress we had made in painting a mural. As the rain soaked the artwork, I witnessed my team's morale plummet. Recognizing the need for action, I took the initiative to gather the group. Together, we brainstormed creative solutions to protect our art from the weather, such as using tarps and rain-reflective paint. I also made sure to allocate tasks to people based on their strengths and preferences.

In the end, the mural not only survived the storm but became a symbol of hope and resilience for our community. This experience taught me how valuable collaboration and resourcefulness are when facing challenges, and it strengthened my confidence in my ability to lead.

From revitalizing the park, I learned that my ability to communicate and connect with people from different backgrounds plays a vital role in fostering a supportive and collaborative environment. This shift in my perspective has transformed my approach to problem-solving and has inspired me to pursue a career in community development. I am eager to continue my journey of growth and leadership in my future studies."

Remember to personalize your essay and be genuine in your storytelling. Good luck with your writing!

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CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

Nine facts about the service sector in the United States

Since early 2020, there have been extraordinary disruptions across all sectors of the economy. This set of nine economic facts about the service sector in the United States illustrates recent trends in spending, employment, and inflation as the country continues to rebalance. We find that the effects of the pandemic linger: only in recent months has activity in the service sector recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Nonetheless, activity is still well below where it was expected to be in the absence of the pandemic, and further recovery is expected.

Recent changes in real services and goods spending have been extraordinary (figure A). With the onset of the pandemic, real spending on services shrunk by 20 percent between February and April 2020. Spending partly bounced back in the third quarter, with consumption of services in September just 8 percent below pre-pandemic levels. Since the fourth quarter of 2020, spending on services has grown 1.7 percent each quarter, on average. Nonetheless, a simple extrapolation of the pre-pandemic trend in services spending shows that it is still well below trend. In contrast, spending on consumer goods soared after a brief contraction. Since June 2020, real spending on goods has been well above trend—as high as 15 percent in March 2021, relative to the trend from 2018 to 2019. More recently, spending on goods has come down—to 6 percent above trend in July 2022—as consumers have rebalanced the composition of spending closer to historical patterns. The combination of rising spending on services, spurred by pent-up demand and strong household finances, and firms facing challenges in increasing hiring has meant upward pressure on wages and prices.

Today, four out of five American workers in the private sector are employed in the service economy, doing everything from delivering care in hospitals and nursing homes to making and serving food to ensuring products make it from ports to store shelves and into consumers’ hands. Since 2020, changes in employment in the services and goods sectors (figure B) have moved more similarly than have changes in spending in these sectors. Early in 2020, employment in the services sector fell 17 percent, while employment in the goods sector fell only modestly less, by 12 percent. And employment has only just recovered to pre-pandemic levels in recent months. To be sure, the decline in services employment was far larger than in the goods sector, but that mostly reflected that the service sector has grown to be much larger. Goods sector employment peaked at 25 million in 1979. In that year, service-sector employment was already higher at 49 million; since then, it has grown to be 109 million.

After withstanding a seismic and unprecedented shock in early 2020, spending and employment in the service sector has continued to recover, and further recovery is expected. It took until the spring of 2022 for the service sector to recover to pre-pandemic levels in both real spending and employment. In addition, the onset and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted disparities in jobs throughout the service sector: some face-to-face service workers faced poor working conditions in jobs with little room for advancement, while other workers in certain professional services were afforded new flexibility, like working remotely. Trends in employment growth may follow; as we show in these facts, employment in leisure and hospitality has lagged other sectors, including professional services.

For decades the service sector has driven the economy and the recent rebound in the service sector continues to drive economic growth. What role is there for policy in sustaining this growth? The Hamilton Project has published a  policy proposal  by Dani Rodrik (Harvard University) that lays out how a modern industrial policy framework should create more “good jobs” by improving productivity and labor income growth for service-sector workers (Rodrik 2022). Is there a role for industrial policy to help create a more resilient, productive economy? And can this industrial policy focus not only on manufacturing but also on the service sector and service-sector workers? The proposal argues that the answer to both questions is yes.

This set of economic facts about the service sector in the United States explores how the service-sector recovery has differed from prior business cycles (fact 1 and fact 2); how spending, employment, wages, and the nature of work in different industries within the service sector are changing (fact 3, fact 4, fact 5, fact 6, and fact 7); and the trajectory of inflation (fact 8 and fact 9).

Fact 1: Recovery in the demand for services has lagged behind recent business cycles.

The immediate period following a business cycle peak has historically been marked by initial weakness in goods spending, while services spending typically has been little affected. In other words, the recent hallmark of a recession was that consumers delayed purchases of goods and particularly purchases of durable goods. This pattern is evident following the peaks in 1981, 1990, and 2008 as shown in figure 1, although less evident in the 2001 recession.

The composition of spending during the COVID-19 recession has been quite different relative to other periods. In the 14 months leading into the pandemic, annualized growth in real spending was 1.9 percent for services and 4.4 percent for goods, roughly consistent with prior business cycles. In 2020, after brief, sharp declines in both types of spending, goods spending soared while services spending remained well below its pre-pandemic peak. Goods spending peaked at 20 percent above its pre-pandemic level in March 2021. And, a year-and-a-half into the recovery, real consumption of goods has slowed down. In prior cycles, this is when goods consumption started to pick up.

Pandemic-related health risks significantly dampened demand for face-to-face services, leading to a more than 20 percent decline in real services spending by April 2020. Since early 2021, real spending on services has slowly recovered, and as of July 2022 is above its pre-pandemic level. However, it remains roughly 3 percent below its pre-existing trend; moreover because of the surge in goods spending, the share of total spending on services is 4 percentage points below its average in the decade before the pandemic.

Fact 2. Leisure and hospitality, transportation, and health services saw the largest declines in demand.

Service industries were most affected by the pullback in spending in early 2020: consumers interact face-to-face with many businesses in the service sector and health risks limited many of those interactions. What sectors drove the overall decline in real consumption of services during the COVID-19 recession described in fact 1? In April 2020, recreation, food and accommodation, transportation, and health care contributed the most to the initial 20 percent decline in the real consumption of services (figure 2).

Spending on food and accommodation reached its pre-pandemic level in September 2021, with the recovery being driven by restaurants. Real spending on food services had exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 5 percent by July 2022, the same month that spending on accommodations only first ticked above its pre-pandemic level. Spending on health-care services has not yet recovered, though it is approaching pre-pandemic levels. While surprising in the midst of a pandemic, many consumers had postponed preventative care and elective procedures.

Spending on recreation and transportation services also reflect early pullbacks in spending on in-person activities, initially falling by nearly 60 percent and 50 percent, respectively. Spending steadily increased in these categories over 2021 but then plateaued in the first half of 2022. In July 2022 real spending on recreation and transportation services were each roughly 10 percent below their pre-pandemic levels.

Fact 3. Small businesses in most industries reported that issues with hiring workers eclipsed other problems.

Figure 3 shows significant variation in the kinds of problems small businesses in different sectors have reported in the Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey. Over the past few years, small businesses have reported that they have been affected at times by labor shortages as well as supply chain and logistic issues. However, the ability to hire all the workers they wanted has remained the most commonly reported issue for a majority of sectors through April 2022.

Since August 2021, food service businesses have consistently reported the most difficulties in hiring workers with 50 to 70 percent of businesses sayings it’s a problem. In other sectors, including manufacturing and health care, roughly 40 percent reported trouble hiring. A July 2022 survey from the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) found that about 50 percent of small business owners reported difficulties in filling job openings, roughly 20 percentage points above the historical average (Dunkelberg and Wade 2022). Firms’ difficulty hiring workers is likely to slow down the recovery of service-sector businesses, which are relatively labor intensive.

Many small businesses also reported difficulties with the availability of supplies or inputs. This was particularly true for small businesses in manufacturing, construction, and retail, with roughly 50 percent of businesses in each industry reporting trouble with supplies and inputs in the Pulse Survey. In addition, significant shares of manufacturing firms experienced both production delays and delays in delivering products to customers. Inheriting some of those production delays, wholesale distributors also showed issues with delayed deliveries. It does not appear those issues have waned in recent months. The July NFIB report found that roughly 30 percent of businesses reported that supply-chain disruptions had significantly affected their businesses, nearly identical to the national average in the Pulse Survey in April.

Fact 4. Separations and hires remain elevated in leisure and hospitality.

March and April 2020 saw record-high job separations across all service industries, particularly in leisure and hospitality. This was followed by a hiring spike in May and June of 2020. Since the first few months of the pandemic, separations and hires in most sectors higher than but closer to their pre-pandemic levels, with a few notable exceptions: leisure and hospitality, in which separations and hires both remain elevated, manufacturing (elevated hiring) and construction (depressed hiring).

Over the course of the pandemic, employment churn—the combination of separations and hiring—has been highest in industries that are more likely to require in-person work (Stevenson 2021). In leisure and hospitality, the net result of both high quit rates and high hiring rates has been a significant employment shortfall: employment was still 1.2 million below its pre-pandemic level in August 2022. That is far and away the largest shortfall in any industry. As demand for those services continues to recover, job openings remain significantly elevated. After reaching nearly 2 million in December 2021, leisure and hospitality openings have moderated only slightly, to around 1.5 million openings since April of this year.

Other face-to-face industries that have been significantly affected are education (public and private) and health care. In the private sector, the combined industries of education and health care saw a jump in separations in March and April 2020 of more than 5 percentage points over their pre-pandemic separations rate. The rate of hiring in private education and health services has been elevated since the summer of 2021, yet in August 2022, employment in those industries remained just shy of their combined pre-pandemic level and well below prior trend. In addition, as figure 4 shows, employers in the health care and education sectors reported significant difficulty in hiring.

In the government sector, the increase in separations was smaller but much more persistent, lasting through fall of 2020, largely because of drawn-out separations in state and local education employment. The rate of hires for those in government has been noisy but generally elevated since 2021. Nonetheless, in August 2022 employment in the government sector remained nearly 3 percent below its February 2020 level, with roughly half of that shortfall accounted for by local government educational services.

Fact 5. The majority of individuals employed in leisure and hospitality in the year before the pandemic were still employed in that sector one year later.

Panel data from the Current Population Survey show that for those employed in leisure and hospitality from March 2018 to February 2019, from March 2019 to February 2020 (the 12 months before the pandemic), or from March 2020 to February 2021, the majority remained employed in that sector in the following year. The survey allows researchers to track some people over 16-month periods. Among those respondents who can be observed over the entire period, 57 percent of those who reported being employed in leisure and hospitality the year before the pandemic were employed in leisure and hospitality the following year, 24 percent were employed in another industry, 10 percent were unemployed, and 9 percent were no longer in the labor force (shown in middle bar of figure 5).

A comparison of that period shown in the middle bar, which shows changes from the year before the pandemic to the year after its onset, to other periods is instructive. Relative to the two-year period before the pandemic (the first bar) and the two-year period after its onset (the last bar), the rate that leisure and hospitality workers became unemployed was elevated. However, other trends were remarkably close across periods. Even more surprising, among people who were employed in the second year of the observation period, the share leaving the leisure and hospitality industry are remarkably similar. The consistency is surprising given that the 2020–21 period was marked by increased health risks and other difficulties of working in the leisure and hospitality industry as well as the strong demand among employers in other sectors.

Another survey, of long-tenured displaced workers, shows that through January 2022, labor market outcomes were less positive for those who had been employed in the leisure and hospitality industry at the same employer for three or more years (BLS 2022c). Those long-tenured workers are generally older and have other less typical characteristics in an industry marked by significant churn. Among them, 64 percent were reemployed, 13 percent were unemployed, and 22 percent had left the labor market.

Fact 6. In 2022, the largest wage gains occurred in leisure and hospitality.

From 2014 to 2019 and in 2020, real wage growth in every industry was, on average, positive. From 2020 to 2021, real wage growth was slightly positive for service-sector workers overall, driven by positive real wage growth in leisure and hospitality, retail, and “other services;” at the same time, it was negative over this period in the goods sector. Extending the period through the most recent data in 2022Q2, real wage growth since 2020 has been negative, on average, for private workers across sectors (purple bars in figure 6). Since mid-2021, rising inflation has undercut the gains in real wages over the first year of the pandemic.

Two industries show positive real wage gains from 2020 to 2022Q2: leisure and hospitality (1.3 percent at an annualized rate) and retail trade (0.6 percent). However, those gains are smaller than in the 2014–19 period: 1.8 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively, for those sectors.

Surprisingly, the patten of real wage gains appears to have only a modest relationship with which industries are having hiring difficulties or which industries have elevated hiring. On the one hand, leisure and hospitality does indeed show that elevated hiring and difficulties in hiring have been associated with higher wages. Perhaps the relatively low level of difficulty in hiring among retail firms is a result of strong wage gains. On the other hand, manufacturers also have elevated hiring and difficulties in hiring, and yet real wage gains have been sharpy negative. In addition, health-care firms also report difficulties in hiring and show negative real wage gains.

Fact 7. In most occupations, the importance of interpersonal interactions has grown.

O*NET survey data show that over the past 10 years, the prominence of job tasks that include interpersonal interactions has increased for nearly all occupations. These tasks include assisting or caring for others, resolving conflicts and negotiating with others, and training and teaching others. Indeed, prior research has found that, relative to 1980, service and social tasks in jobs associated with soft or noncognitive skills have increased dramatically and critical thinking skills have increased while routine and math tasks have fallen or plateaued (Autor, Levy, and Murnane 2003; Acemoglu and Autor 2011; Deming 2015; Schanzenbach et al. 2016; Atalay et al. 2018; Hershbein and Kahn 2018).

Although the increases in the importance of interpersonal interactions were not limited to occupations generally associated with the service sector, service-sector occupations saw the largest increases. For example, figure 7 shows the two occupations that saw particularly large increases in the importance of such activities were health-care support and food preparation and serving. Increasing importance of interpersonal interactions is likely to continue: Deloitte reports that by 2030, soft skilled-intensive occupations will account for two-thirds of jobs, putting such skills further in demand (Deloitte 2019; Cengage 2019). According to Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trends Index, interpersonal interactions increase productivity and lead to more innovation through strategic thinking, collaborating with others, and proposing new ideas (Microsoft 2021).

How will the prominence of interpersonal tasks interact with the increasing prevalence and preference for remote work, spurred by the pandemic? The relationship between home-based work and the importance of interpersonal tasks extends beyond face-to-face interactions, with this relationship varying considerably across occupations (Avdiu and Nayyar 2020). Developing interpersonal relationships with clients, customers, and colleagues may look different in a world in which work tasks demand interpersonal interactions but more service-sector jobs are remote.

Fact 8. The trajectory of inflation differs by sector and location.

During the pandemic, as consumer spending shifted away from services and towards goods and the sector was plagued by supply constraints, goods inflation jumped in cities throughout the country (Stone 2022). As shown in the second panel of figure 8, the annualized rate of inflation for commodities (goods) spiked between the August 2017–August 2019 and August 2020–August 2022 periods. Across seven select (and generally representative) metropolitan areas, the increases ranged from 7 to 9 percentage points; on average across US cities, the rate rose by more than 8 percentage points, from 1.4 percent to 9.8 percent.

Services inflation also rose on average, but the third panel shows that the increases were smaller than in commodities and showed more variation across places. In fact, services inflation fell in San Francisco and was roughly unchanged in Los Angeles, likely driven by reductions in shelter inflation as shown in the seventh panel. (However, fact 9 suggests that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation measure of shelter is slow to pick up price increases and a pickup in shelter inflation may be on the horizon in cities that have so far seen little inflation in this area.) Six other metropolitan areas saw increases in services inflation ranging from 1.3 percentage points in Seattle to 3.3 percentage points in the Miami area.

On average across US cities, food services inflation jumped 5.9 percentage points, with prices rising more for food consumed at home than prices at restaurants and other outside businesses. However, the increases varied considerably across cities, from a low of 2.8 percentage points in Miami to 7.4 percentage points in Houston. In recreation, increases in inflation ranged between 0.9 and 8.0 percentage points. Medical services inflation remained stable or declined modestly except in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle.

Fact 9. New leases are driving housing services inflation.

According to multiple measures of rental prices, inflation in the housing market was depressed at the start of the pandemic but has since risen above pre-pandemic levels (figure 9). Inflation measures from the CPI and the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), which reflect changes in rent costs for the average tenant, fell from a roughly 3.5 percent annualized rate in 2019 to lows of around 2 percent in mid-2021. However, growth has rebounded since then: as of summer 2022, the 12-month change in both measures exceeded 5 percent. Because leases are typically set for a year, rapid acceleration in rents for new leases affects average rents only as the new leases are incorporated. Thus, changes in CPI and PCE housing inflation generally lag other measures that show price changes only for new leases (Ambrose, Coulson, and Yoshida 2020).

Even for more timely measures capturing new leases, most indices show that the 12-month change in prices of new leases was falling during the first year of the pandemic. Rates then skyrocketed in 2021, well before the CPI and PCE measures began to increase. Although these new-lease rental inflation measures have come down somewhat in recent months, they remain well above the CPI and PCE measures. Because housing costs are a large portion of spending on services as measured in both the CPI and the PCE inflation measures, rising rents—and house prices—are already putting significant upward pressure on overall inflation. Of the 8.5 percent annual increase in CPI inflation and the 6.3 percent increase in PCE inflation in July 2022, housing cost inflation contributed roughly 2 percentage points and 1 percentage point, respectively (with differences due to methodology and weighting). The measures shown here suggest that those contributions will become larger over the coming months as more recent new leases are incorporated.

To be sure, not all cities have experienced swings in rental inflation to the same degree. Notably, New York City rental prices fell 22 percent between November 2019 and November 2020, but then surged 33 percent over the 12 months ending December 2021, according to Apartment List. In contrast, Kansas City, MO, rental prices rose 1 percent between November 2019 and November 2020, and increased 9 percent between December 2020 and December 2021.

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Reimagining industrial policy for the service and tech sectors

Research on the Service Sector in the Modern Economy

• First Online: 19 March 2023

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• Miloš Šajbidor 5 &
• Marian Mikolasik   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0096-7492 5  

Part of the book series: Studies in Systems, Decision and Control ((SSDC,volume 462))

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The major objectives of this research paper are to give more comprehensive information about the service sector's role in the modern economy, to illustrate it with theoretical data and actual figures, and to explore how the service sector has changed and what changes it brought to the economy. The beginning of the current paper aims to explain the term “Service” given by various researchers, to identify the key unique characteristics of them that distinguish services from goods, and present common short classifications. Then the evolution of the service-based sector is described, namely the leadership of service industries, employment share in the service sector, and the increasing role of services worldwide. Finally, it provides information about the collaboration and interaction of E-business and Services, and how E-business and ICT have changed the service sector.

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Šajbidor, M., Mikolasik, M. (2023). Research on the Service Sector in the Modern Economy. In: Kryvinska, N., Greguš, M., Fedushko, S. (eds) Developments in Information and Knowledge Management Systems for Business Applications. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 462. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25695-0_1

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• Service Sector in India: A Paradigm Shift

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Introduction to the Service Sector in India 

The growth of the Services Sector in India is a unique example of leap-frogging traditional models of economic growth. Within a short span of 50 years since independence, the contribution of the service sector in India to the country’s GDP is a lion’s share of over 60%. However, it still employs only 25% of the labour force. Consequently, agriculture (which is stagnant) and manufacturing (which has not yet risen to its full potential) continue to sustain the majority of our employed population. This presents a unique challenge to future economic growth in India and requires out of the box solutions that will help rapidly harness the potential of the service industry in India. Invest India takes a look at the contribution of the services sector in the Indian economy, its successes and also explores potential enablers for future equitable economic growth.

Market Size of Service Industry

A quick comparison with the American and Chinese economy reveals the unique nature of India’s GDP growth from the contribution of the Service sector and its linkages to employment and income distribution (Figures in bracket indicate employment). Over time, a robust manufacturing and productive agriculture sector leads to the Service industry in India becoming the mainstay of GDP and employment. In our context, the Service sector has become extremely important to grow not only our GDP, as well as make it the key vehicle for employment generation. However, the question is - how to increase value add to GDP from Service companies in India, while reducing employment dependency from agriculture, as well as boosting the manufacturing industry.

(*IT contributes the majority)

The current growth of service sector in India is based mainly on labour market arbitrage. Moving forward, India can no longer rely on ‘low cost’ for ‘low value added’ services. Therefore, we need solutions that address these:

i) Boosting the manufacturing sector with both direct and indirect spin - off benefits for the growth of the service sector in India (e.g. Make in India) ii) Moving up the value chain, especially in the IT/ ITeS sector. iii) Broad - basing the Indian Services offering platform into sectors beyond the traditional IT/ ITeS by identifying the global demand for such services, and meeting these demands based on our natural competencies and comparative advantages.

Comparison – GDP in Service sector and Employment generation

Service Sector in India: Sectors and Growth potential 

Let us now look at the list of service sectors in India that perform, as well as demonstrate strong potential for future growth.

IT-BPM/ Fintech

The IT/ITeS & Fintech segments provide over $ 155 bn in gross value add and have the potential to grow between 10 -15% p.a. Exports form its largest component. So far, our key advantage has been low - cost labour arbitrage in a predominantly English - speaking country. Going forward, the IT and ITeS segments require significant upskilling to move beyond a ‘low - cost low value add service provider’ to a ‘high value add partner’. Indian IT companies can also leverage their skill sets to provide fintech solutions to global financial customers. Financial risk management services, insurance , natural disaster modelling and underwriting are examples of high value add services performed within India for a global audience.

Healthcare & Tourism  

The current contribution of the healthcare industry is over $ 110 bn and is expected to touch $ 280 bn by 2020. Availability of world - class medical facilities, skilled doctors, technicians and pharmaceuticals are some of our advantages. With digital communication and interfaces, diagnostic medicine can also be tapped into as a service for global customers.

Similarly, for tourism, India is renowned for its places of natural beauty and historical significance. Tourism presently contributes $ 47 bn to the country’s GD, compared with $ 115 bn for China . Thus, tourism has exponential possibilities to boost the Indian services sector in the next decade.

To attract significant revenues, improved customer experience (medical or tourism) is the key factor that will determine its future growth. In this context, government initiatives such as e - Visas , better infrastructure facilities, safety, connectivity etc. are enablers in the right direction.

Space  

India captured the world's attention last February when it broke the record for launching the most number of satellites into space. Moreover, this was done at a fraction of the cost incurred by other space powers.  Indian services in the space domain, with proven expertise in multiple launch technologies, provide it with a significant advantage over its peers in the global space transportation industry. Our launch capabilities have a near 100% track record. Many countries are actively looking to piggyback on India’s launch facilities. This demonstrates great potential. The government is actively proving its ability, but more can be done to build capacity in military and non - military space applications. In this context, public - private participation is key to ensure the flow of capital, as well as to strengthen competencies in this area. 

Logistics & Transportation  

India’s natural coastline and vast river network give it a competitive edge in providing transportation and logistics services, both domestically and internationally. These can be classified into ports and ports services, warehousing, trans - shipment services, e - logistics, inland waterways for freight and passengers, expressways and dedicated freight corridors. India’s logistics service sector itself is expected to grow from $ 115 bn to $ 360 bn by 2032.

India should closely look into the development of the service industry, given the potential and need for sustained large scale investment. Investments typically have a long gestation period. However, once the infrastructure is created, linkages to the rest of the economy provide significant multiplier effects. For example, the Mumbai - Pune expressway and the development of service industries in Pune.

Other services  

Media & Entertainment (animation, gaming, dubbing), Education (online platforms such as MOOC), and Sports (IPL, IFL, Sports Management), Legal/ Paralegal services, Risk management and advisory functions, etc. are areas that can lead to an immense contribution of service industry in the Indian economy.

Top 10 service sector companies in India:

Recent Investments in the service sector 

 Of late, the government’s efforts in improving ease of doing business and relaxing regulatory norms have resulted in increasing FDI into the country . The following examples demonstrate the strong linkages that FDI has in unleashing the potential, as well as propelling the growth of the services sector in India:

- Connecting Gujarat and Maharashtra , India’s first bullet train has potential similar to that of the Mumbai - Pune expressway, but on a larger scale. - Manufacturing of Rafale jets in India. - Building large highway systems in India (expressways and freight corridors), inland waterways (Jalmarg Vikas project), port modernisation and new port development (Sagarmala project) -Amazon India expanding its logistics footprint  -Creation of a Taiwanese tech park in Karnataka -A dedicated fund of $ 693 mn, which will be utilized to support sectoral undertakings under the Champion Services Sectors Initiative. These include IT and ITeS , Tourism and Hospitality Services , Medical Value Travel, Transport and Logistics Services, Accounting and Finance Services, Audio Visual Services, Legal Services, Communication Services, Construction and Related Engineering Services, Environmental Services, Financial Services and Education Services .

Future Prospects of the Service Sector in India 

The service sector in India has the highest employment elasticity among all sectors. Thus, it has the potential for huge growth as well as the capability to deliver highly productive jobs - leading to revenue generation. To address the challenge of job creation, the Skill India program aims to achieve its target of skilling/ up - skilling 400 million people by 2022. It aims to do this mainly by fostering private sector initiatives in skill development programs, and by providing them with the necessary funding.

Similarly, the Make in India program - while attempting to bolster the manufacturing sector - will cause a multiplier effect in adding to the portfolio of the Service Sector. In this context, the Startup India initiative is a key enabler for both the manufacturing as well as service industry in India - by offering to support innovative startups.  

• https://www2.deloitte.com/in/en/pages/industries/articles/india-services-sector.html
• https://www.ibef.org/industry/services.aspx
• http://ijariie.com/AdminUploadPdf/INVESTMENT_OPPORTUNITIES_IN_SERVICE_SECTORS_IN_INDIA_c_1222.pdf

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Essay on the Services Sector of India

In this essay we will discuss about the Service Sector of India. After reading this essay you will learn about: 1. Introduction to Services Sector 2. Importance of Services Sector in India 3. Performance.

• Essay on the Performance of Services Sector in India

1. Essay on the Introduction to Services Sector:

In the sense of economics, services are any functions or tasks, performed by an individual or a group of individual, for which there is a demand and hence a price is determined if it is available in the relevant market. Services are sometimes referred to as intangible goods.

They are consumed at the point of production and they are usually non-transferable, in the sense that the service cannot be purchased and then resold at a different price.

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Services sector is composed of broad spectrum of service providing entities spread throughout the Country. Economic Survey, 2011-12 observed that “The services sector has been a major and vital force steadily driving growth in the Indian economy for more than a decade. The economy has successfully navigated the turbulent years of the recent global economic crisis because of vitality of this sector in the domestic economy and its prominent role in India’s economic interactions”.

In a country like India, having a huge size of population, services sector has its huge potential. Development of services sector can transform this burden of large size of manpower into an asset by its proper utilizations and thereby can generate a huge size of income for the nation as a whole.

The services sector usually covers a wide range activities from the most sophisticated information technology (IT) to simple services provided by the unorganized sector like the services of the plumber, masion, barber etc.

National Accounts classification of the services sector incorporates trade, hotels, and restaurants; transport, storage and communication; financing, insurance, real estate, and business services; and community, social and personal services. In World Trade Organization (WTO) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) classification, construction is also included in services sector.

Importance of service sector is well recognised everywhere. Tom Peters, a renowned author once said, “When you build a manufacturing plant, it starts depreciating on the day it opens. The well served customer, on the other hand, is an appreciating asset. Every small act on his or her part ups the odds for repeat business, add-on business and priceless word-of-month referral.”

Among the three important sector (viz., agriculture and allied, secondary sector and services sector), contributing to the development of the economy of a country, the contribution of services sector is increasing steadily over the past few years.

In most of th6 developed countries of the world, the services sector is contributing the major portion of its Gross Domestic Product and generates three times more employment than manufacturing sector.

In most of the developing Countries, where agriculture and industry dominated the show In generating employment till a few years ago, but things started to change in recent period. In recent years, services sector experienced a rapid shift in its favour in generating both income and employment. Thus it has been observed that the service sector has become a major player in almost all the countries of the world.

2. Essay on the Importance of Service Sector in India:

In India, the importance of services sector has been increasing continuously decade after decade. With the continuous expansion of services sector, both in terms of volume and diversity, the importance of services sector has been increasing at a high speed.

The following are some of the importance’s of services sector in Indian economy:

(i) Contribution of GDP:

The share of total services sector in India’s GDP (at constant prices), which is constituted by trade, hotels, transport, storage and communications, banking, insurance, real estate, community and personal services, but excluding construction increased from 28.5 per cent in 1950-51 to 31.8 per cent in 1970-71 and then finally to 51.3 per cent in 2013-14.

But the share of total services sector, excluding construction, to India’s GDP at factor cost (at current prices) increased rapidly from 30.5 per cent in 1950- 51 to 50.8 per cent in 2010-11 and then to 55.7 per cent in 2011-12.

If construction is also included, then the same share of services sector increased from 56.8 per cent in 2000-01 to 59.6 per cent in 2013-14. Among the major components of services sector, the share of transport, Communication and trade in India’s GDP (at constant prices) increased from 11.0 per cent in 1950-51 to 18.6 per cent in 2013-14.

The share of community and personal services to GDP (at constant prices) marginally increased from 8.5 per cent in 1950-51 to 12.9 per cent in 2013-14. The share of finance insurance, real estate and business services increased from 9.0 per cent in 1950-51 to 19.8 per cent in 2013-14.

Thus it has been observed that the contribution of services sector into GDP of India has been increasing at considerable proportion and thereby it has proved to be a major sector among all the three sectors of the economy.

(ii) Higher CAGR and Rapid Growth of Services Sector:

The importance of services sector to Indian economy can also be traced from its attainment of higher compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The CAGR of the services sector attained at 10.0 per cent for the period 2004-05 to 2011-12 has been found to be higher than the 8.6 per cent of CAGR of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of India during the same period, which clearly indicates that the services sector has outgrown both the industry and agriculture sectors, showing its supremacy among all three sectors of the economy in recent years. Such rapid growth of the service sector has resulted considerable changes in the GDP of the country.

Moreover, the growth has been specifically marked in the public services, information technology and financial services. Of late, India has just become a service oriented economy. The country did not follow the traditional growth models and thereby skipped the manufacturing growth stage to directly jump from agricultural growth stage to services growth stage.

However, the growth in services sector will definitely support growth process in agriculture and industrial sector in reasonable proportion and thereby assist the economy in generating employment and raising overall productivity.

The ratcheting up of the overall growth rate (CAGR) of the Indian economy from 5.7 per cent in the 1990s to 8.6 per cent during the period 2004-05 to 2009-10 was to a large measure due to the acceleration of the growth rate (CAGR) in the services sector from 7.5 per cent in the 1990s to 10.3 per cent during the period 2004-05 to 2009-10.

The services sector growth was significantly faster than the 6.6 per cent for the combined agriculture and industry sectors annual output growth during the same period. Although, the agricultural sector has been a dominant player initially, but of late the share of services sector has also been increasing over the years, which has been challenging the dominance of primary sector or agriculture in the later stage of development.

(iii) Horizontally Higher Share of Services in GSDP:

The service sector has been contributing towards the gross state domestic product (GSDP) of different states and union territories (UTs) satisfactorily in recent years. A comparison of the shares of services in the GSDP of different states and union territories in 2011- 12 shows that the services sector is the dominant sector in most states of India.

States and UTs such as Tripura, Nagaland, West Bengal, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi and Chandigarh have recorded a higher share of services sector to its GSDP which are again higher than all India shares (55.7 per cent) of its services sector.

Chandigarh with an 85 per cent share and Delhi with 81.8 per cent share top the list. This has resulted a horizontal spread of higher share of services sector in GSDP of a number of states.

(iv) Employment Generation of Services Sector:

The important of services sector can also be realised from its contribution towards generation of employment in India. Although the primary sector (mainly agriculture) is the dominant employer followed by the services sector, the share of services sector has been increasing over the years and that of the primary sector has been decreasing.

Between 1993-94 to 2009-10, there has been a sharp fall in the share of primary sector in employment from 64.75 per cent in 1993-94 to 53.2 per cent in 2009-10.

But the consequent rise in share of employment of the other two sectors was almost equally divided between secondary and tertiary sectors. However, while agriculture continues to be the primary employment providing sector, the services sector (including construction) is in the second place.

During the same period, the share of services and construction sectors in employment increased from 19.70 per cent to 25.30 per cent and 3.12 per cent to 9.60 per cent respectively.

As per National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report on Employment and Unemployment Situation in India in 2009-10, on the basic usually working persons in the principal and subsidiary statuses, for every 1000 people employed in rural India, 679 people are employed in the agriculture sector, 241 in the services sector (including construction) and 80 persons in the industrial sector.

Again in urban part of India, 75 persons are employed in the agriculture, 683 persons in the services sector (including construction) and 242 persons in the industrial sector. Moreover, construction, trade, hotels and restaurants and public administration, education and community services are the three important employment providing service sectors.

Studies further reveals that the tertiary employment share have strong upward slopes in all the income quintiles covered both in urban and rural areas with higher income quintiles having higher share in each successive NSSO round. Thus tertiary employment growth is steadying moving from being an absorber of low income of labour to providers of high income jobs.

State-wise, there are wide differences in the share in employment of different sectors in rural India. It is found that some work-eastern states like Sikkim, Tripura and Manipur have a high share of employment in the services sector and again some city states like Chandigarh and Delhi also have very high shares of employment in services like 826 and 879 respectively out of 1000 employed people.

Moreover, among the major states, Kerala has a high share of employment in the rural services sector at 511 persons out of 1000 persons. Construction; trade, hotels and restaurant; and public administration, education and community services are the three major employment providing services sectors in all these different states.

In urban India the shares of employment in services in most of the states varied like 833 in Assam, 877 in Meghalaya, 732 in Bihar, 787 in Jharkhand, 711 in Kerala, 716 in Maharashtra, 743 in Rajasthan, 653 in Uttar Pradesh, 641 in Gujarat, 586 in Tamil Nadu and 683 in West Bengal out of 1000 employed people.

(v) Contribution to India’s Services Trade:

The services sector is also playing an important role sector in raising the volume of exports in the country. Thus India is moving towards a services-led export growth in recent years. During 2004-05 to 2008-09 as per the Balance of Payment (BoP) data, merchandise and services exports grew by 22.2 and 25.3 per cent respectively.

Again India’s share of services exports in the world export of services, which increased from 0.6 per cent in 1990 to 1.0 per cent in 2000 and further to 3.3 per cent in 2011, has been increasing faster than the share of merchandise exports in world exports. Services growth slowed in 2009-10 as a result of the global recession, but the decline was less pronounced than the slowdown in merchandise export growth and has recovered rapidly in 2010-11.

As per BoP data of the RBI, India’s services exports grew at a CAGR of 20.6 per cent during the period 2004-05 to 2010-11, compared to the 19.7 per cent CAGR of merchandise exports during the same period. If we enter into the details of services sector, CAGRs of financial services (29.2 per cent) were at higher level while that of software at 21 per cent was at lower level.

In terms of size, software is a major services export category, accounting for 41.7 per cent of total services exports in 2010-11. The CAGR for import of services was 20.2 per cent compared to the CAGR of merchandise imports, at 21.4 per cent. Among the various items of services imports, non-software services (22.6 per cent) and transportation (20.5 per cent had high CAGRs.

Moreover, the overall openness of the economy reflected by total trade including services as a percentage of GDP showed a higher degree of openness at 55.0 per cent in 2011-12 compared to 25.4 per cent in 1997-98 and 38.1 per cent in 2004-05.

(vi) Contribution towards Human Development:

Services sector has a lot of contribution towards human development in our country. Accordingly, services sector has been rendering some valuable services, viz., health services, educational facilities, IT and IT enabled services (ITes), skill development, health tourism, sports, cultural services etc. which are largely responsible for human empowerment and improvement of quality of life of the people in general.

(vii) Services Sector Growth and FDI Inflows:

Modest growth of services sector has made ample scope for the smooth inflow of FDI into the country. FDI also plays a major role in the dynamic growth of the services sector. On the positive side, at global level, medium term prospects for services are generally better than those manufacturing sector with international investment in the services sector expected to grow relatively faster.

Moreover, many transnational companies, which some years ago were mainly focused on their home markets, are now pursuing their internationalization strategies involving ambitious investments abroad. Developing and transition economies particularly in Asia are considered as most attractive destinations. Accordingly, India has been largely considered as favoured destination for increasing flow of FDI.

Although flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into services sector of the country is maintaining a positive trend but the ambiguity in classifying various activities under the services sector poses differently in the measurement of flow of FDI into this sector.

However, the combined FDI share of financial and non- financial services, computer hardware and software, telecommunications and housing and real estate can be broadly taken as rough estimates of FDI share of services.

Such FDI share of services was 40.5 per cent of cumulative FDI equity in flows during the period April 2000 to December 2012. Including the construction sector (6.5 per cent), the share of services in FDI inflows increases to 47.0 per cent.

If the shares of some other services like hotels and tourism, trading, information and broadcasting, consultancy services, ports, agriculture services, hospital and diagnostic centres, education, air transport including air freights and retail trading are included then the total share of cumulative FDI inflows to the services sector would be around 58.4 per cent.

However, in terms of cumulative FDI equity inflows during April 2000 to December 2011, the financial and non-financial services are found to be the largest recipients with 20.1 per cent, ($ 31.7 billion), which is again followed by telecommunications with 7.9 per cent ($ 12.5 billion), computer hardware and software with 6.9 per cent ($ 10.9 billion), housing and real estates with 6.9 per cent ($ 10.9 billion), and construction activities 6.5 per cent ($ 10.2 billion) share.

The shares of financial and non-financial services sector in total FDI inflows from these sourcing countries are Mauritius 20.1 per cent Singapore 30.6 per cent, U.K 29.5 per cent, USA 21.9 per cent and Japan 11.9 per cent.

(viii) Contribution towards Development of Infrastructure and Communication Services:

Services sector has also been playing an important role in developing expanding and management of infrastructure with a special emphasis on development of transportation and communication services. In a developing country like India the importance of development of infrastructural facilities is quite high.

The contribution of transport, storage and communication to the GDP at factor cost (at current prices) in India ranges from 8.2 per cent in 2006-07 to 7.1 per cent in 2011-12.

(ix) Contribution towards Growth of IT and ITeS:

The services sector has also paved the way for a continuous growth of its IT and IT enabled services (ITeS) sector and thereby helping the economy of the country to attain higher growth both in terms of GDP share, employment, exports etc. which has put India on the global map.

The IT and ITeS sector of the country has developed an image of a young and resilient global knowledge power and has earned a brand identity in this sector.

The IT and ITeS industry has four major sub-components : IT services, business process outsourcing (BPO), engineering services and research and development (R&D), and software products. This IT and ITeS sector has been generating considerable amount of revenues and employment in the economy.

As per NASSCOM estimates, India’s IT and BPM sector (excluding hardware) revenues were to the tune of US $ 95.2 billion in 2012-13 and has been able to generate direct employment for nearly 2.8 million persons and indirect employment of around 8.9 million persons in the country.

Moreover, as a proportion of national GDP, IT and ITeS sector revenues have grown considerably from 1.2 per cent in 1997-98 to an estimated 7.5 per cent in 2011-12.

Software exports from India in 2011-12 stands as US $ 69 billion as compared to US $ 59 billion in 2010-11. It is also observed that exports continue to dominate the IT and ITeS industry and constitute about 78.4 per cent of total industry revenue. Moreover, the CAGR of the domestic sector has also been remained at high level of 12.8 per cent as compared to the 14.2 per cent for exports during the Eleventh Plan period.

The growth rate of the domestic sector of IT-ITeS and exports sector in 2010-11 were 20.6 per cent and 18.8 per cent respectively as compared to that of 9.7 per cent and 16.4 per cent growth rate attained respectively in 2011-12. Consistent and growing demand from US is largely responsible for increasing its share in total exports of India’s IT and ITeS services from 61.5 per cent to 62.0 per cent in 2011-12.

Moreover, emerging markets of Asia Pacific and the rest of the world also contributed to overall growth of IT and ITeS sector of the country. Thus the Twelfth Plan aims to harness the potential of the software and services sector to contribute to country’s development and growth, particularly in terms of investments, exports employment generation and contributive to GDP and to retain India’s leadership position as a global IT-BPO destination.

(x) Contribution towards Development of Some Social Services:

Services sector is also playing an important role in the development and expansion of some social services like sports, cultural services etc. Sports promotes physical fitness and develops human personality which also played an important role in national identity, community bonding and international bonding.

Moreover, cultural activities, or services include recreation and entertainment and radio and TV broadcasting besides other related cultural services. To meet the objective of preserving and promoting all forms of art and culture, a variety of activities are being undertaken by the Government of India.

A total allocation of Rs 3,555 crore was made to this sector during the Eleventh Plan. However, cultural activities are becoming increasing by important in the modern post industrial knowledge based economy.

Throughout the world they have been recognized as an important component of growth and job creation as well as a vehicle of cultural identity. India exported US $ 4 billion worth of creative services in 2010 at a CAGR of 26 per cent.

As per the report of Ernst and young, the Indian media and entertainment industry is valued at US $ 16.3 billion in 2010 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 12 per cent in the next four years (2011-14) to reach a value of US $ 26 billion.

Thus services sector has been playing an important role in promoting some valuable social services for overall enrichment of the society. Thus services sector has attained a considerable size and dimension in its forms of activities and has been playing an important role in a highly populous country like India.

However, the outlook and status of the services sector which had once fallen due to the global economic slow-down and financial crisis faced by US, but the same sector has turned its heads towards its revival and growth once again. The growing opportunities in this sector has been generating employment to many across the nation and are also attracting FDIs for attaining success in future.

However, the challenge faced by this sector will be to retain India’s competitiveness in those areas where the country has made a mark viz. telecommunications, IT and ITeS etc. Besides, India has to face another challenge to penetrate into some traditional areas such as tourism, shipping where other countries have already established its mark.

However, India’s potential for success in the sector is very high. Thus these challenges faced by India need to be addressed if the country wants to realize its pipe dream of attaining double digit growth and generating large number of employment opportunities for its growing population in the days to come.

Finally, in a country like India, having a large size of population and presently enjoying the merit of population dividend in the form of growing proportion of working age population, the prospect and potential of the services sector in generating income and employment for its people is quite bright.

Moreover, the growing volume of income and employment generated by services of sector has been working as booster or major force for the other two sectors, viz. industry and agriculture by creating new demand for its product which in turn help these two sectors to attain higher growth.

3. Essay on the Performance of Services Sector in India:

It would be important to study the performance of some major services which are playing an important role in Strengthening the economy.

By the term trade means exchange of commodities between individuals or groups either directly through barter or indirectly through medium such as money. Thus trade is an important activity providing interface between the producer and consumer. The benefits that can be realised from trade consist of an extension in the range of commodities available for consumption and a specialization in productive activity.

In India, trade is becoming a very important activity within the Service sector and thereby contributes a good portion to GDP. The value of trade (inclusive of wholesale and retail in the organized and unorganized sectors) in India’s GDP at constant prices has grown from Rs 4,33,967 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 8,10,585 crore in 2011-12 at a CAGR of 9.3 per cent. As per CSO’s QE the growth rate of trade in 2010-11 was 9.1 per cent.

Moreover, the share of trade in GDP has been slightly above 15 per cent in the last six years (2005-06 to 2010- 11) and remained at 15.4 per cent in 2010-11. As the country has been experiencing high GDP growth rates during 2005-2011 along with high growth in consuming population, the retail business is now being hailed as one of the sunrise sectors in the economy.

A.T. Kearney, an international management consultancy firm, has identified India as one of the topmost retail destinations. Since 2006, India has been allowing FDI in single brand retail to the extent of 51 per cent.

In January 2012, the government removed restrictions on FDI in the single brand retail sector, allowing 100 per cent FDI into it. Again, allowing FDI in multi-brand retail is one of the major issues in this sector. This could begin in phased manner in the metros, with the cap at lower level.

As per A.T. Kearney, Global Retail Development Index 2012 report, India is ranked at 5th place which remains a high potential market with accelerated retail market growth of 15 to 20 per cent expected over the next five years. While the overall retail market in India contributes 14 per cent of India’s GDP but the organized retail penetration still remains a low level thereby indicating room for further growth.

Brazil tops the ranks with retail sales accounting for 70 per cent of consumer spending of Brazil, followed by Chile, China, and Uruguay. In case of India, the food and beverages segment is recording increased activity from foreign players and grocery still remains the largest source of retail sales in India.

Hyper-markets and super­-markets, continue to dominate the organised retail market in India but cash-and-carry is growing fast, with- significant expansion planned from Bharti Wal Mark, Metro Group and Carrefour.

Apparel market is again expected to grow by 9 to 10 per cent annually for next five years. Besides, other players like Zara, Marks and Spencer’s and Mango are actively scouting locations for opening more stores across the country. In 2011-12, the luxury retail sector saw 20 per cent growth with luxury malls becoming entrenchened in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Again, allowing FDI in multi-brand retail is one of the major issues in this sector. This could begin in a phased manner in the metro cities, with the cap at lower level coupled with incentivizing the existing ‘mom and pop’ stores (Kirana shops) to modernize and compete effectively with the retail shops, foreign or domestic.

With the improvement in modern retail trade in India, agricultural marketing could improve a lot and the revenue collection of the government could also increase. Presently, the retail sector in India is largely unorganized and has low tax compliance.

The Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) on inflation of the Government of India has also recently recommended to raise the flow of FDI into multi-brand retail as one of the important measure to address the problems related to high rate of food inflation and low or un-remunerative prices realised by Indian formers, developing a ‘farm-to-fork’ retail supply system and also for addressing the gaps in investment in respect of post harvest infrastructure for agricultural produce of the country.

(ii) Tourism including Hotels and Restaurants:

Tourism is considered as one of the important component of services sector. It is considered as both growth engine and export-growth engine. It is also considered as an effective mechanism of employment generator as it has the capacity to create large scale employment both directly and indirectly for different sections of the society and also for different categories of workforce both specialized as well as skilled and unskilled.

As per UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Tourism Highlights (2012), tourism offers 6 to 7 per cent of world’s total jobs directly and also millions of their indirectly through its multiplier effect and 5 per cent of global income. Tourism generates more inclusive growth than other sectors as it is the largest generator of employment across the World and Women account for 70 per cent of the work force in travel and tourism industry.

According to UNWTO, international tourist arrivals surpassed the 1 billion mark for the first time in history in 2012, reading a figure of 1.04 billion from 996 million in 2011 with 4 per cent growth, despite the volatility around the globe. Emerging economics, attaining 4.1 per cent growth regained the lead over advanced economics with 3.6 per cent growth. But Asia and Pacific shows the strongest growth at 7 per cent.

In 2011, international tourism receipts grew by 11 per cent (3.9 per cent in real terms) to an estimated US $1030 billion, which set a new records in most destinations despite economic challenges in many source markets.

According to the UNWTO, total number of international tourist arrivals world-wide is expected to increase by 3.3 per cent a year on an average during the period 2010 to 2030, which would result around 43 million more tourist arrivals every year, so as to reach a total of 1.8 billion arrivals by 2030.

Like the earlier years, emerging economy destinations are set to grow faster than advanced economy destinations. As a results of this trend, the market share of emerging economies which has increased from 30 per cent in 1980 to 47 per cent in 2011, is likely to reach 57 per cent by 2030, equivalent to over one billion international tourist arrivals.

As per Tourist Satellite Account Data, (2009-10) contribution of tourism to GDP and employment in India was 6.80 and 10.20 per cent respectively.

Tourism sector in India has witnessed significant growth in recent years. During the period 2006 to 2011, the CAGRs of foreign tourist arrivals (FTA) and foreign exchange earnings (FEE) from tourism (in rupee terms) were 7.2 per cent and 14.7 per cent respectively.

FTAs in India during 2010 were to the extent of 5.78 million as compared to that of 5.17 million in 2009, recording a growth of 11.8 per cent which is comparatively much higher than the growth of 6.5 per cent for the entire world in 2010.

FEEs from tourism sub-sector (in rupee terms) were Rs 64,889 crore in 2010 as compared to Rs 54,960 crore during 2009 recording a growth rate of 18.1 per cent. Despite continuous slowdown and recessionary trends in the economies of Europe and America, FTAs during 2011 were around 6.29 million with a growth rate of 9.2 per cent over 2010 and FEEs in 2011 were RS77,591 crore recording a growth rate of 16.7 per cent over the previous year.

As per the approach paper of the Twelfth Five Year Plan, India’s travel and tourism sector is estimated to generate 78 jobs per million rupees of investment as compared to 45 jobs per million rupees in the manufacturing sector. Although FTAs in India grew by 9.2 per cent in 2011, but due to Euro-zone crisis and global slowdown, FTA growth moderated to 5.4 per cent only to reach 66.48 lakh arrivals in 2012.

As a result, the foreign exchange earnings (FEEs) growth in dollar-terms declined from 16.7 per cent in 2011 to 7.1 per cent to reach US $ 17.74 billion in 2012. The share of India in international tourist arrivals was just 0.64 per cent (rank 38) in 2011.

India’s share in international tourism receipts was relatively higher at 1.61 per cent in 2011 (rank 17) though it is quite low as compared to countries like US (11.3 per cent) and even China (4.1 per cent).

Domestic tourism has also emerged as an important force to the sector providing much needed resilience. Domestic tourism is therefore, an important contributor to the growth of this sector attaining 14.34 per cent CAGR of domestic tourist visits during the period 1991 to 2011.

During 2011, there were 851 million domestic tourists recording a growth of 14.9 per cent over the previous year. Again the top five states, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra cumulatively accounting 69 per cent of the total domestic tourists visits in the country.

Hotels and restaurants sector with a 1.5 per cent share in India’s GDP in 2011-12 is also an important sub-component of the tourism sector. As an December 2011, there were 2,895 classified hotels maintaining a capacity of 1, 29,606 rooms in the country. Availability of good quality and affordable hotel rooms along with other related facilities plays an important role in boosting the growth of tourism in the country.

The share of hotel and restaurant sector in overall economy increased from 1.46 per cent 2004-05 to 1.53 per cent in 2008-09 and then declined to 1.46 per cent in 2010-11. However, within the service sector, the share of hotel and restaurant sub-sector declined from 2.75 per cent in 2004-05 to 2.64 per cent in 2010-11 as other service sector sub-groups grew faster than this sector.

During the period 2004-05 to 2009-10, the CAGR of this sub sector was 8.44 per cent and the growth rate in 2010-11 was 7.7 per cent. Health tourism, the new area in this sector is a niche area where India has good potential.

According to a study by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Thailand, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Hungary, Poland and Malta are effectively promoting their comparative advantage as medical tourist destinations.

In respect of health tourism, India is in a better position. Several features like cost-effective health-care solutions, availability of skilled health care professionals, reputation for treatment in advanced health care segments, increasing popularity of India’s traditional wellness systems, and strengths in IT have positioned India as an ideal health-care destination.

While strengthening its capabilities in modern health are systems, India is also leveraging its inherent strengths in traditional health-care systems such as Ayurveda, siddha, Yoga, naturopathy, and faith healing/spiritualism. India has also hold an edge over competitor countries with its mastery over techniques of concentration and mind control and also in the face of its natural resources and remarkable cultural diversity.

In order to promote tourism, the government has taken many policy initiatives including a five year tax holiday for 2, 3 and 4 star category hotels located around UNESCO World Heritage sites (except Delhi and Mumbai) for hotels which starts operating w.e.f. 1 April 2008 to 31 March, 2013; an investment linked income tax deduction for 2 and 3 star category of hotels located outside cities. A committee has also been formulated to support golf, polo and wellness tourism.

The government has also formulated a set of guidelines on safety and quality norms of adventure tourism. To attract foreign tourists visiting India for medical treatment, a new ‘medical visa’ category has also been introduced. The government has also formulated guidelines for addressing various issues governing wellness centres, covering the entire spectrum of Indian systems of medicine.

However, the tourism sector is facing certain challenges. Some of the challenges still remain as hindrances to the growth of this sector. One of such challenges is the multiple taxes on hospitality and tourism-related activities which make the tourism product expensive in the form of high hotel rates and high fares; another such challenge in the luxury tax which is imposed by the state governments leading high tariffs and low occupancy in hotels.

Tourism infrastructure is another area which needs immediate attention where there is plenty of scope for public-private partnerships (PPP). Thus it is found that significant opportunities still remain relatively untapped and for attaining faster, sustainable, and more inclusive growth, as envisaged by the Twelfth Five Year Plan, the tourism sector holds a lot of promise and prospect.

(iii) Transport Related Services:

Transport related services is considered as an important component of services sector. The share of transportation including railway services category in GDP at factor cost (at current prices) declined slightly from 6.6 per cent in 2006-07 to 6.4 per cent in 2008-09 and then to 6.2 per cent in 2010-11. Railways is an important component within this services category and it share in GDP increased from 0.9 per cent in 2006-07 to 1.0 per cent in 2009-10 and then declined to 2.8 per cent in 2010- 11.

Shipping is also playing an important role in the commodity and services trade to the country. It plays an important position in Indian economy covering around 95 per cent of country’s trade by volume and 68 per cent in terms of value being transported by sea. As on 31 January, 2013, India had a fleet of strength of 1,158 ships with Gross Tonnage (GT) of 10.45 million.

The public sector Shipping Corporation of India is having the largest share of 32.60 per cent. Of this, 356 ships with a capacity of 9.37 million GT cater to India’s overseas trade and the rest to coastal trade. The gross foreign exchange earnings/savings of Indian ships in 2011-12 were to the extent of Rs 10,666.45 crore.

Though India has one of the largest merchant shipping fleets among developing countries, it is ranked eighteenth in the entire world in terms of dead weight tonnage (DWT) with a share of only 1.05 per cent as 1st January, 2012 as compared to China’s ninth rank with a share of 3.79 per cent.

Port services are also an important part of transport services. Ports are vital link in the trade between nations. In order to increase productivity and efficiency of ports, continuous modernization of ports and up gradation of port infrastructure are very important. India has a very long coastline. At present there are 13 major ports and 200 minor operable ports along the coastline. The major ports handle approximately 75 per cent of all India port throughput.

During 2007-08, the total cargo handled at major ports and non-major ports was 723.0 million tonnes. The total capacity of Indian ports has reached approximately 1,245.3 million tonnes as on 31st March 2012. During 2009-10 and 2010-11, traffic at major ports attained a growth of 5.67 per cent and 1.59 per cent respectively over the previous year. During 2011-12 total traffic handled at all ports at 911.7 million tonnes which grew by 3 per cent over the previous year.

Road transport is another important mode of transport services in India as it covers every corner of the country. At present, India has a total road network covering 4.10 million kilometers which makes it one of the largest road networks in the world.

It is estimated that road traffic in India accounts for 80 per cent of passenger traffic and 60 per cent of goods traffic in the country which is expected to grow further in future. This transport services are contributing a lot to the GDP of our country and are also responsible for generation of large number of employment both directly and indirectly.

(iv) Storage Services:

Storage services are also an important component of the services sector. Ware­housing services are considered as an integral part of both inbound and outbound logistics, as goods produced have to be stored in different geographical locations of the country before shipping and dispatch as per demand and order flows received from different destinations.

In India, the most important component of ware­housing is agricultural storage for agri-produce, food-grains, fertilizers, manures etc. Other components include industrial warehousing for industrial goods, import cargo and excisable cargo; inland container depots (ICDs) or container freight stations (CFSs) for facilitating import and export trade; and also special warehouses for cold and temperature-controlled storage.

The warehousing sector usually provides many ancillary services. In India, the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) along with 17 State Warehousing Corporations (SWCs) provides scientific storage facilities for agricultural produce and implements and some other notified commodities.

The commercial outreach of CWC along with its social objectives resulted operation of a large network of warehouses across the country. As on 31 December, 2011, CWC was operating 469 warehouses, with total storage capacity of 99.81 lakh MT and average utilisation of 89 per cent of its storage capacity.

The CWC started its operation as public bonded warehouses in the late 1970s and later on diversified its business into CFSs and ICDs and also started container rail transportation from Loni (UP) to the JNPT. In 2010-11, the CWC added its capacity of 1.45 lakh MT with total capital outlay of RS 65 crore. Moreover, at state level, 17 SWCs were operating a network of 1,624 warehouses with its aggregate storage capacity of 230.10 lakh MT as on 1 December, 2011.

In recent years, major policy initiatives are taken by the government which include—construction of go-downs under the 7 year/10 year guarantee scheme of the Government of India, permission of upto 100 per cent FDI in the construction of warehousing infrastructure; construction of warehouses under the Grameen Bhandaran Yojana of the NABARD and Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana; making the warehouse receipt fully negotiable; and construction of godowns under the Private Entrepreneurs Godown (PEG) Scheme.

The CWC has plan to construct 2.09 lakh MT additional storage capacity of 2.09 lakh MT during 2011-12. However, there is sufficient need to further increase high quality storage capacity and the number of trained samplers and graders in the country.

(v) Communication Services:

Communication services, composed of telecom and related services and postal services are considered as important component of service sectors. Telecommunication is the fastest mode of communication developed in the country.

Telecommunication services include the telephone service, telex service, telegrams, fax service, internet and broad band service, and radio and television. Indian telecom service has proved to be an international success story as the sector has been witnessing commendable growth over the past few years. The Indian telecom network is ranked as second largest in the world, next only to China.

The total number of telephones connections has increased from 206.83 million on 31 March, 2007 to 926.53 million as on 31 December 2011. Within this, the growth in wireless connections has been phenomenal, reaching its number to 893.84 million connections at the end of December 2011, comprising its share to over 96 per cent of total telephones in the country.

Tele-density, which is considered as an important indicator of telecom penetration, has increased from 18.22 per cent in March, 2007 to 73.34 per cent in December 2012. While the urban tele-density in December 2012 reached a high level of 149.55 per cent but the rural tele- density remained low at 39.90 per cent, which signifies its potential for further growth in the rural areas. The liberal policy regime facilitated the growth of the sector and reduced the operational costs to its consumers.

Postal services is the cheapest mode among all communication services. Indian postal services have been growing over the years and has become the largest postal network in the world with 1,54,822 post offices, as on 31 March 2012, spreading across the country.

On an average, each post office serves 7,814 persons with coverage of approximately 21.23 sq. km of area. Out of these post offices, as many as 1,39,040 post offices are located in rural areas and 15,826 post offices are located in urban areas.

In 2008, the government has launched ‘Project Arrow’ to transform the existing India Post infrastructure across the country by upgrading key postal operations such as mail delivery, remittance and banking services. India Post is gradually emerging as a one stop shop for retail products and offers a single window facility for banking money remittances and other financial products.

Moreover, India Post has been given the responsibility of disbursing wages to beneficiaries of MGNREGA through its 96, 895 post offices.

(vi) Real Estate Services:

One of the important component of the services sector is the real estate services. Real estates services provides housing facilities. Housing is a basic need and provides economic and social security to the people. It is also considered as an asset which can have significant leveraging effect in order to support and supplement other means income generation and poverty alleviation.

This is an important employment-intensive sector. From this sub-sector, a host of vocations and professions such as construction workers, builders, developers, architects, engineers, interior decorators, carpenters, masions, plumbers, values, property consultants etc. derive their livelihood both directly and indirectly from such housing projects. As per simple estimate, it is observed that for every rupee that is invested in housing and construction RS 0.78 gets added to GDP.

In terms of the multiplier effect on the economy, housing ranks fourth and it ranks third amongst 14 major industries in terms of total linkage effect. Both directly and indirectly, the real estate industry has been maintaining significant linkages with nearly 300 sub-sector group of industries like cement, steel, paints, and building hardware which contribute extensively not only to capital formation and generation of income and employment opportunities but also catalyze and stimulate economic growth satisfactorily. Thus, investment in housing and real estate activities can be easily considered as a barometer of growth of the entire economy.

In 2010-11, the GDP share of the real estate sector (including ownership of dwellings) along with business services was 10.6 per cent. After attaining a growth of 10.4 per cent in 2008-09, the rate of growth of this sector has decelerated to 7.8 per cent in 2009-10 and then to only 7.2 per cent in 2011-12.

Currently (2011-12) nearly 5.9 per cent of India’s GDP is being contributed by the housing sector. The contribution of housing sector to GDP is likely to increase to 6 per cent as the institutional credit housing investment is growing at a CAGR of nearly 18 to 20 per cent per annum in the next three to five years.

As per the World Bank’s Doing Business 2012 report, India is among the top countries in terms of housing and work space needs but it ranks 181st in respect of construction permission processes. As per the Task Force estimate, requirement of housing during the Twelfth Plan in urban areas is 18.7 million units.

As per Mekinsey Report, the demand for affordable housing will be 38 million by 2030. But this sector is now facing some challenges related to land acquisitions, red tapism, high stamp duty, formalities and costs related to registration and mutation some of which are considered superfluous and unnecessary.

The absence of single window clearance system with standardization of bye-lows and processes are complicating its activities. Recently, some of the urban local bodies (ULBs), development authorities, such as Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Indore have successfully introduced a system of online sanction for building plans and also for issuing completion certificates, which are likely to reduce its approval time and thereby can help this real estate sector to complete their project within stipulated period without facing the problem of cost over-run.

Adoption of similar such measures by other development authorities and urban local bodies are needed to boost the activities of this sub-sector.

(vii) Some Business Services:

There are some business services which are also considered as important component of the services sector.

Some of these important business services are as follows:

(i) IT and ITeS:

IT and ITeS sector has bloomed itself into a full fledged industry along with its own flavour. The Indian ITeS and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has demonstrated its superiority, sustained cost advantage and fundamentally-powered value proposition in the international market.

Accordingly IT and ITeS sector are giving India the image of a young and resilient global knowledge power. The IT and ITeS industry has four major sub-components, viz., IT services, business process outsourcing (BPO), engineering services and research and development (R & D) and software products.

As per NASSOCOM estimates, India’s IT and BPO sector (excluding hardware) revenues were to the extent of US $ 95.2 billion in 2012-13, generating direct employment for nearly 2.8 million persons and indirect employment of nearly 8.9 million persons.

As a proportion of national GDP, IT and ITeS sector revenues have grown from 1.2 per cent in 1997- 98 to 8.0 per cent in 2012-13. Software exports are estimated at US $ 76 billion in 2012-13 as compared to that of US $ 69 billion in stet 2011-12.

Recently, the IT and ITeS sector has been facing some challenges like-increasing competition from other countries with incentivized low costs, rising costs in India with wage-push inflation, increasing cost of relevant talent and skilled personnel, infrastructure constraints, risks from currency fluctuations and security, both physical and data related, and rising protectionist sentiments in key markets. Thus, government her taken some initiatives to promote the growth of this IT and ITeS industry.

(ii) Accounting, Legal and Consultancy Services:

Accounting and auditing, legal and consultancy services are some of the important business services provided by services sector of India. Indian accounting firms are increasingly getting integrated and are providing associated services such as management consultancy, corporate finance, and advisory services in addition to their core business of accounting auditing and tax services.

As per WTO data, it was observed that out of US $ 44.5 billion other business services exports by India in 2010, the share of accounting legal, management consultancy and public relations services was 19.3 per cent and out of US $ 21.03 billion business services imports, their share was 26.2 per cent.

However, there are huge potential for accounting services in India. Out of 48,000 chartered accountancy firms in India, there are only 2,043 firms that have four or more partners.

The remaining are practising as proprietary firms or in their individual names. The chartered accountancy profession in India has globally benchmarked its qualifications and training standards and has entered into qualification-recognition arrangements with accounting bodies of UK, Australia, Canada and Ireland.

The export potential of India in accounting services could be tapped adequate by such mutual recognition and qualifications. Tie-ups to overcome the weakness of small size of domestic accountancy firms could also help accountancy sector of India to grow manifold.

In respect of legal services, India has been maintaining its own strength. India has as estimated 1.2 million legal practitioners and is next only to US in terms of its numbers. In India, there are 950 law schools and about 4 to 5 lakh law students across country. The legal service providers, are individual law-years and small or family based firms.

In India, the practice of law is governed by the Advocates Act of 1961 under which foreign law firms are not allowed to engage in practice of law in India. India is ranked 45, with a score of 4.5 in terms of judicial independence by the Global Competitiveness Report, 2011-12.

As regards efficiency of the legal framework in setting disputes, India is ranked 64 with a score of 3.7. This shows that India needs to improve its ranking through legal and judicial reforms and speed up of disposal of judicial cases. The National Knowledge Commission recommended establishing a separate body to regulate legal education and setting up of centre for Advanced Legal Studies and Research.

The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) has been constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987 in order to monitor and evaluate implementation of legal aid programmes and lay down policies and principles for making legal services available under the Act.

There is also need to quickly implement proposals related to commercial disputes and amendments in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 to make India a favourable destination for international arbitration.

Moreover, consultancy services are emerging as one of the main business are as in India. The volume of revenue earning in the Indian. Consultancy industry on conservative basis has been estimated at around US $ 8.24 billion in 2010-11. Presently, the consultancy services contribute to about 0.47 per cent of the GDR.

The growth rates of consulting industry over the last few years have been extremely promising and its revenue is projected to increase to US $ 9.89 billion in 2012 at a growth rate of 20 per cent.

In India, consulting service providers may be classified into five categories: individual consultants, consulting firms, R&D organizations, academic institutes, and professional bodies. Various client sectors to which consulting services are provided at present include agriculture and rural development, banking and financial services, construction, education, energy, environment, governance and public administration, health and demography, infrastructure, information technology, law and regulation, life sciences, manufacturing, management, science and technology, telecommunications, transport, tourism, urban development and water management. The consultancy service market can be broadly classified into engineering and management consultancy.

As per estimates made in 2006-07, engineering consultancy services comprised around 7,000 individuals and 25,600 firms. India’s emergence as one of the fastest growing consultancy markets in the world has been largely facilitated by the liberalization of FDI policy, entry of many new players, high growth in many key sectors, and India marked as a low cost sourcing destination.

(iii) R&D Services:

Research and Development (R&D) services is another important compound of business services in India. Among business services, R&D occupies the second position in India’s GDF with growth being consistently high at near 20 per cent in the last few years with growth in 2011-12 at 20.5 per cent.

According to Battelle R&D magazine, gross expenditure in R&D (GERD) by India for the year 2012 was projected to be US $ 41 billion in purchasing power parity terms, which is estimated at 0.8 per cent of GDP as compared to USA’s 2.3 per cent and China’s 1.6 per cent of GDP. This can be termed as low both in absolute terms and also as a proportion of GDP compared to other countries.

This may be partly due to the fact that the sizes of R&D base and absorption capacity are not commensurate with its requirements. On the basic of the estimates prepared in 2010-11, it was found that the sectors which attracted largest R&D expenditures were pharmaceuticals, electrical and non-electrical machineries, electronics, plastics, transport equipment’s etc.

It has been found that though developed nations remain the leaders in innovation, there has been a continuous and increasing shift in R&D activities from developed to developing countries. Developing Asian countries, especially China and India, are now driving the growth of global R&D.

Factors which are playing a major role in driving the R&D investments towards these countries include-low cost of production, access to new markets, availability of knowledge oriented suitable manpower, favorable regulatory environment and necessary fiscal benefits.

MNCs from various developed countries are now desiring to expand their R&D activities in these countries through collaborative projects in some areas like electronics and telecommunications, software development, hardware and product design and development drugs and pharmaceuticals.

(viii) Construction Services:

Construction services as a component of services sector has been gaining its importance in Indian economy. The construction industry in India is now considered as an important indicator of growth and development as it creates a lot of investment opportunities and also raises production capacity across various related sectors.

The share of construction services into GDP at factor cost (at current prices) has been increasing from 6.0 per cent in 2000-01 to 8.5 per cent in 2008-09 and then to 8.2 per cent in 2011- 12.

Thus presently with a share of 8.2 per cent of GDP, the construction industry has contributed around Rs 6,70,778 crore (at current prices) to national GDP at factor cost in 2011-12. While its growth rate (at constant prices) in 2010-11 was 8.0 per cent, but in 2011-12 it decelerated to 4.8 per cent due to some external and internal factors such as recession in Europe, hardening of interest rates in India and challenges related to land acquisitions in some places.

As the sector is labour intensive and, including indirect jobs, it provides employment to around 33 million people. It has been estimated that nearly to per cent of these people are employed in the infrastructure segment and the remaining 30 per cent are employed in the real estate segment.

As per industry estimates, this construction industry is expected to generate additional employment around 47 million leading to total number of people employed in this sector reading 83 million persons by 2022.

This sector is critical for enhancing the productive capacity of the overall economy as on an average it accounts for more than half the investment required for setting up very critical infrastructure such as power projects, railways, ports, air ports, roads, and bridges.

As the sector got industry status in 2000, more initiatives are being taken by the government to undertake projects on PPP basis. As a result of these initiatives, more private ownership of build-operate-transfer (BOT), build-operate-own-transfer (BOOT), and build-operate-lease-transfer (BOLT) projects being taken up in this sector.

Moreover, FDI up to 100 per cent under the automatic route is allowed in townships, housing, built-up infrastructure and construction of development projects (which broadly include housing, commercial premises, educational institutions and recreational facilities).

This sector is fragmented with a number of major companies involved in construction activities across all segments. Which medium sized companies are specialising in niche activities, small and medium contractors are actually working on sub-contract basis and finally carry out the work in the field.

The construction sector has major linkages with the building materials industry since they account for sizeable share of construction costs ranging between 40 to 50 per cent. As the Twelfth Plan has envisaged to enhance infrastructure investment to US $ 1 trillion, thus the construction sector is all set to become one of the powerful growth engines of Indian economy in the near future.

As the Government has taken initiatives to develop mass rapid transport systems (MRTS) in cities with 20 lakh population thus it will also boost the demand for construction activities further. Thus the potential of the construction sector is very high in urban infrastructure, especially in MRTS and water management.

Moreover, undertaking new projects like dedicated freight corridors in railways and construction of new airports in Tier II and Tier III cities, clearing pending projects in ports, and development of real estate projects in urban infrastructure are likely to generate huge opportunities for the construction sector of India.

(ix) Some Social Services: Sports and Cultural Services:

Some social services like sports, cultural services, creating industry, media and entertainment industry etc. are some of the important segment of services sector which are also contributing a lot to the socio-economic development of the nation.

Sports is one of the important mode of activities and entertainment. Apart from being a means of entertainment, physical fitness, and development of human personality, sports have also been playing an important role in national identity, image building, community bonding and international bonding.

As sports in modern times highly competitive, the use of modern infrastructure and equipment and advanced scientific support has no alternative and these in turn are changing the scenario at international level.

In order to face such changing situation, the Government of India has been taking several initiatives in order to help sports persons with scientific and equipment support as well as providing them training and exposure in international competitions.

In the mean time, the Government of India have been announcing several schemes aiming at promotion of drug free sports, sports infrastructure development both for urban and rural India separately, promotion of excellence in sports, incentives to sport persons, assistance to sports-support institutions, and promotion of sports among persons with disabilities. Indian athletes showed a commendable and impressive performance at the Commonwealth Games 2010 and Asian Games 2010.

Cultural services is another important area which include ‘recreation and entertainment’ and ‘radio and TV broadcasting’ besides other related cultural services. In a modern post industrial knowledge based economy, cultural activities are becoming increasingly important. There is positive correlation between culture and employment which is growing year after year.

In India, a large number of people are getting viable employment by engaging themselves in various cultural activities as writers, publishers, librarians, musicians, painters, sculptors, singers, dancers, choreographers, photographers, actors etc. cultural activities also support other economic activities like cultural tourism.

In India, the major part of tourism, both national and international, can be classified as cultural tourism because it is geared to achcheological sites, monuments, museums, and cultural heritage including traditional fairs and festivals. Such cultural tourisms are generating huge number of employment opportunities and preserves ethnic culture and activities satisfactorily.

In order to meet the objective of preserving and promoting all forms of art and culture, a variety of activities are being undertaken by the Government of India. Accordingly, under the patronage of Ministry of culture, a network of 41 organizations is functioning for protection, development and promotion of both tangible and intangible heritage and knowledge heritage. A total allocation of RS 3,555 crore was allocated to this sector during the Eleventh Plan period.

Besides, creative industry includes cultural heritage, printed matter and literature, music and performing arts, visual aids, audio-visual media including cinema, television, radio and photography, and socio-cultural activities, museum and archives. Moreover, trade in creative industry can also be broadly classified into goods and services.

As per UNCTAD estimatic, world exports of creative services stand at US $176 billion in 2010 which was growing at a CAGR of 15.4 per cent. Among all these countries, India is ranked 13th with a share of 2.3 per cent in world exports of creative services. Accordingly, India exported US $ 4 billion worth of creative services in 2010 which was increasing at a CAGR of 26 per cent.

As per one report prepared by Ernst and young, the Indian media and entertainment industry is valued at US $16.3 billion in 2010 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 12 per cent in the next four years (2011- 14) in order to reach a value of US $ 26 billion.

Moreover, the rapid convergence of networks, devices, and content is expected to dramatically alter the dynamics of Indian media and entertainment industry. Besides, there are 245 private FM Radio stations, along with the government controlled All India Radio, operating in 237 radio stations.

Again Indian film industry is the largest in the world with the production of over 1,000 films a year in more than 20 languages. The film industry is also contributing to outsourcing of services such as animation, Visual aids, conversion of 3D, and post production services, to the ICT sector, thus contributing adequately to its growth.

The Indian film industry is also generating additional revenue through collaboration with the ICT sector, like DVDs, music CDs, mobile downloads, and online gaming.

But the growth of the film industry is inhibited by factors like high rate of entertainment of tax, and lades of uniformity in tax structure across states. Thus adoption of the goods, and services tax (GST), subsuming service tax and entertainment tax could promote the development of Indian film industry.

In respect of publishing sub-segment India has been maintaining about 77,348 news-papers/magazines (registered) in circulation in 23 scheduled languages (including English) and several other non-scheduled languages. The low readership penetration (about 30 per cent) as compared to a literacy rate of 75 per cent underscore the potential for growth of publishing sector.

About 42 per cent of advertising amount spent in the country is made through the print media. Presently, foreign investment up to the limit of 100 per cent is permitted in case of foreign publishing houses for bringing out facsimile editions of their own newspapers through their wholly owned subsidiary.

Thus considering the wide diversity of the sector and taking into account of its huge potential, the services sector of the country should be given due importance for attaining further growth in the years to come.

In this connection it needs to be mentioned here that the importance of services sector in India can be realised from the fact that it is now contributing the major portion of Country’s GDP and the amount of revenue realised by the government by imposing services tax has become very much significant and the tax become very much productive within the shortest span of time.

Thus the prospect and potential of the services sector is quite rich considering its capacity to generate income, employment and tax revenue to the government.

Related Articles:

• International Comparison of India’s Services Sector (With Statistics)
• Role of Public Sector and Private Sector in India
• Trade in Services | India | Economics
• Essay on Joint Sector Enterprise in India

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 129 great examples of community service projects.

Extracurriculars

Are you interested in performing community service? Do you want examples of service projects you can do? Community service is a great way to help others and improve your community, and it can also help you gain skills and experience to include on your resume and college applications.

Read on for dozens of community service ideas to help you get started volunteering.

What Is Community Service?

Community service is work done by a person or group of people that benefits others. It is often done near the area where you live, so your own community reaps the benefits of your work. You do not get paid to perform community service, but volunteer your time.

Community service can help many different groups of people: children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, even animals and the environment. Community service is often organized through a local group, such as a place of worship, school, or non-profit organization, but you can also start your own community service projects.

Many people participate in community service because they enjoy helping others and improving their community. Some students are required to do community service in order to graduate high school or to receive certain honors. Some adults are also ordered by a judge to complete a certain number of community service hours.

Why Should You Participate in Community Service?

There are numerous benefits to participating in community service, both for yourself and others. Below are some of the most important benefits of volunteering:

• Gives you a way to help others
• Helps improve your community
• Can help strengthen your resume and college applications
• Can be a way to meet new friends
• Often results in personal growth
• Gives you a way to gain work experience and learn more about certain jobs

How Should You Use This List?

This list of over one hundred community service examples is organized by category , so if you're particularly interested in working with, say, children or animals, you can easily find community service activities more related to your interests.

In order to use this list most effectively, read through it and make note of any community service ideas that match your interests and that you may want to participate in. Some considerations to keep in mind are:

Is there a specific group of people or cause you are passionate about? Look for projects that relate to your passion and interests. You may also just want to perform particular community service activities that allow you to do hobbies you enjoy, like baking or acting, and that's fine too.

Perhaps you don't have enough time to regularly devote to community service. In that case, it may be better to look for opportunities that only occur once or sporadically, such as planning special events or helping build a house.

Some people prefer to participate in community service activities that have a quantifiable impact, for example, activities where you know the specific number of kids you tutored, dollars you raised, or cans of food you collected. This is in contrast to activities that don't have such clear numbers, such as creating a garden or serving as a volunteer lifeguard. Some people prefer quantifiable activities because they feel they look stronger on college applications, or because they simply enjoy knowing their exact impact on the community.

Many community service activities can help you gain skills. These skills can range from teaching to medicine to construction and more. If there is a particular skill you'd like to learn for future classes, jobs, or just out of personal interest, you may want to see if there is a community service activity that helps you learn that skill.

List of Community Service Examples

Below I've listed over 100 community service ideas to get you started with brainstorming.

General Ideas

Donate or raise money for your local Red Cross

Organize a community blood drive

Send cards to soldiers serving overseas

For your next birthday, ask for charitable donations instead of gifts

Hold a bake sale for your favorite charity

Read books or letters to a person who is visually impaired

Organize a wheelchair basketball team

Participate in a charity race

Organize an event or parade for Memorial Day

Volunteer to help at a charity auction

Participate in National Youth Service Day in April

Contact a tree farm about donating Christmas trees to nursing homes, hospitals, or to families who can't afford to buy their own

Collect unused makeup and perfume to donate to a center for abused women

Help register people to vote

Organize a car wash and donate the profits to charity

• Help deliver meals and gifts to patients at a local hospital
• Write articles / give speeches advocating financial literarcy. First you should learn about the topics themselves, like calculating housing costs, or understanding personal loans, and then give presentations on these topics.

Helping Children and Schools

Tutor children during or after school

Donate stuffed animals to children in hospitals

Organize games and activities for children in hospitals or who are visiting hospitalized relatives

Knit or crochet baby blankets to be donated to hospitals or homeless shelters

Collect baby clothes and supplies to donate to new parents

Organize a Special Olympics event for children and teenagers

Sponsor a bike-a-thon and give away bike safety gear, like helmets and knee pads , as prizes

Collect used sports equipment to donate to families and after-school programs

Volunteer at a summer camp for children who have lost a parent

Sponsor a child living in a foreign country, either on your own or as part of a group

Coach a youth sports team

Put on performances for children in hospitals

Give free music lessons to schoolchildren

Become a volunteer teen crisis counselor

Organize a summer reading program to encourage kids to read

Organize an Easter egg hunt for neighborhood children

Create a new game for children to play

Organize events to help new students make friends

Babysit children during a PTA meeting

Organize a reading hour for children at a local school or library

Donate used children's books to a school library

Work with the local health department to set up an immunization day or clinic to immunize children against childhood diseases

• Volunteer to help with Vacation Bible School or other religious camps

Helping Senior Citizens

Read to residents at a nursing home

Deliver groceries and meals to elderly neighbors

Teach computer skills to the elderly

Drive seniors to doctor appointments

Mow an elderly neighbor's lawn

Host a bingo night for nursing home residents

Host a holiday meal for senior citizens

Make birthday cards for the elderly

Donate and decorate a Christmas tree at a nursing home

Organize a family day for residents of a retirement home and relatives to play games together

Ask residents of a retirement home to tell you about their lives

Pick up medicine for an elderly neighbor

Perform a concert or play at a senior center

Help elderly neighbors clean their homes and organize their belongings

Rake leaves, shovel snow, or wash windows for a senior citizen

• Deliver cookies to a homebound senior citizen

Helping Animals and the Environment

Take care of cats and dogs at an animal shelter

Clean up a local park

Raise money to provide a bulletproof vest for a police dog

Plant a tree for Arbor Day

Place a bird feeder and bird fountain in your backyard

Start a butterfly garden in your community

Sponsor a recycling contest

Grow flowers in your backyard then give bouquets to hospital patients or people who are housebound

Help create a new walking trail at a nature center or park

Update the signs along a nature trail

Adopt an acre of rainforest

Help train service dogs

Participate in the cleanup of a local river, pond, or lake

Foster animals that shelters don't have space for

Organize a spay and neuter your pet program

Care for a neighbor's pet while they are away

Sponsor an animal at your local zoo

Train your pet to be a therapy animal and bring it to hospitals or nursing homes

Build and set up a bird house

Organize a carpool to reduce car emissions

Campaign for more bike lanes in your town

Volunteer at a nature camp and teach kids about the environment

Test the water quality of a lake or river near you

• Plant native flowers or plants along highways

Helping the Hungry and/or Homeless

Build a house with Habitat for Humanity

Donate your old clothes

Volunteer at a soup kitchen

Donate old eyeglasses to an organization that collects that and distributes them to people in need

Donate non-perishable food to a food bank

Donate blankets to a homeless shelter

Host a Thanksgiving dinner for people who may not be able to afford their own

Offer to babysit or nanny for a family in need

Make "care kits" with shampoo , toothbrushes , combs , etc. to donate to homeless shelters

Prepare a home-cooked meal for the residents of a nearby homeless shelter

Collect grocery coupons to give to a local food bank

Help repair or paint a local homeless shelter

Donate art supplies to kids in a homeless shelter

Help organize and sort donations at a homeless shelter

Babysit children while their parents look for jobs

Become a Big Buddy for children at a homeless shelter

Take homeless children on outings

Bake a batch of cookies or loaf of bread and deliver it to a soup kitchen

Build flower boxes for Habitat for Humanity houses

Organize a winter clothes drive to collect coats, hats, scarves, and gloves to be donated

Make first aid kits for homeless shelters

Reducing Crime and Promoting Safety

Volunteer at a police station or firehouse

Become a certified lifeguard and volunteer at a local pool or beach

Paint over graffiti in your neighborhood

Organize a self-defense workshop

Organize a drug-free campaign

Sponsor a drug-free post-prom event

Start or join a neighborhood watch program

Create and distribute a list of hotlines for people who might need help

Teach a home-alone safety class for children

Create a TV or radio public service announcement against drug and alcohol use

Become CPR certified

• Volunteer as a crossing guard for an elementary school

Promoting Community Enhancement

Paint park benches

Donate used books to your local library

Become a tour guide at your local museum

Repaint community fences

Plant flowers in bare public areas

Organize a campaign to raise money to buy and install new playground equipment for a park

Participate in or help organize a community parade

Clean up vacant lot

Produce a neighborhood newspaper

Campaign for more lighting along poorly lit streets

Create a newcomers group in your neighborhood to help welcome new families

Petition your town leaders to build more drinking fountains and public restrooms

Volunteer to clean up trash at a community event

Adopt a local highway or road and clean up trash along it

Help fix or raise funds to repair a run-down playground

Clean up after a natural disaster

Now that you know what your options are for community service, you can take the following steps to start getting involved:

#1: Look over your interests: Which activities seem most appealing to you? Were they mostly in one particular category, like children or the environment? If so, that's a good starting place for choosing specific organizations to contact.

#2: Figure out how much time you can devote to community service: Are you available for two hours every week? Are you not free on a regular basis but can volunteer for an entire weekend now and then?

Think about transportation as well and how you'll be able to get to different locations. Knowing this information will help you choose which community service projects to pursue, and it's helpful information for volunteer coordinators to know.

#3: Do some research to see what projects you can do in your community: Check at your school, place of worship, or town hall for more information on volunteering. You can also contact the place where you'd like to perform your community service, such as a particular animal shelter or nursing home, and ask if they take volunteers.

#4: Start volunteering! This list ranges from small projects that you can complete on your own in a few hours, to much larger projects that will take more time and people. If you find a project you can start on your own, do it!

If you want to do a project where you'll need more resources or people, check around your community to see if a similar program already exists that you can join. If not, don't be afraid to start your own! Many organizations welcome new volunteers and community service projects.

Additional Information

Considering doing volunteer work in another country? Read our guide on volunteer abroad programs and learn whether or not you should participate in one.

Are you in college or will be starting soon? Extracurriculars are one of the best parts of college! Check out our guide to learn which extracurricular activities you should consider in college .

Did you know that you can use your community service work to help pay for college? Check out our step-by-step guide on how to win community service scholarships.

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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A Rare Bright Spot for a Canine Lover Doing Time: Raising Puppies to Become Service Dogs

Adam roberts reflects on the highs and occasional lows of training labrador retrievers for the puppies behind bars program..

C hristmastime 2022 saw me getting up on another wall in Fishkill Correctional Facility. As in, painting another mural, the seventh since early November — when my pup Lexi left. I was staying busy to avoid spinning too adrift in a spacey dark void of loss.

“That's why I couldn’t join that program,” my friend Ant said. He was talking about Puppies Behind Bars (PBB), a program that allows incarcerated people to live in a special unit and train Labrador retrievers to become service dogs.

I took my first PBB class in August 2019. I signed the puppy raiser contract, agreeing that if I was assigned a dog, it would stay with me no longer than two years before being placed with a wounded war veteran, first responder or law enforcement agency.

The housing unit for PBB was serene relative to the madhouse maximum security dorm I’d come from two months prior. Before I could set down my bags, two Labs came wagging over, sniffing out the new guy. I was so happy. Between the dogs, single rooms and the courtyard with trees, I didn’t feel imprisoned. And for the first time since 1999, I was touching a dog.

A s the new guy, I looked for opportunities to contribute — exercising dogs, wiping them down, picking up poop. Outside of the weekly classes taught by outside instructors, I learned from senior raisers and by closely watching the dogs. I developed favorites: There was Charlotte, a big yellow girl, and Shadow, an elder statesman.

After a month, when instructors and peers deemed me ready, I was permitted to have my first overnight with a dog — Shadow — who slept in a crate in the room. For 24 hours, I was responsible for his feeding and toileting. I had to provide him with three hours of exercise and review commands he’d been taught by his raiser, Ron.

Ever since, I’ve been giving PBB my all, back-burnering my art and publishing , and decreasing the amount of hours I work as a peer counselor in Transitional Services.

I n March 2020, when COVID-19 happened, there was death and deprivation the world over. But my life was a luxury vacation of sleeping in, playing with dogs, training, learning, napping, cooking elaborate meals, more playing, sleeping and repeating. Puppy life, at least, kept on. When Atticus was destined for a family (“fear barking” disqualified him from working as a service dog), I walked him to the gate, crying — he was the only pup who chose to hang out with me.

Three months into the pandemic, I was selected for a puppy! Lee arrived with siblings, Maddie and Jules. They were all beautiful black Labs, aged 10 weeks. On June 8, 2020, our bond began. I was now responsible for another’s well-being: I was Lee’s raiser, trainer and first responder. I celebrated every accomplishment, fretted over problematic behaviors and saved baby teeth to tape into the weekly journal we keep for our pups, showing the dog’s sponsor and their forever person what puppyhood was like. Oh, to be a Lab in its first years! And what you think of as a harsh prison, is actually a dog’s dream: pack mates ready to romp, humans who “speak dog” and weekend socialization trips to New York City with volunteers.

I was learning so much about dogs and their behavior, but also about softening my ego by asking others for help. Then November struck.

Through a video screen, I learned that Lee’s “environmental awareness” suited him for scent work. He’d be leaving for further training to become an explosive detection canine. You might envision a dog being blown up, but what I learned in preparing Lee is that detection work is fun for a dog. They get to sniff, jump, climb and find. On Dec. 21, 2020, I walked my best friend to the gate one last time, sobbing the entire way.

Over the six months we had together, I had watched Lee grow, helped him learn and nursed him post-neuter. When he left, I remember coming back to the unit and staring at a blank TV. I realized just how close we’d become and what he meant to me as someone who’s always looking to connect with others. It was a dark, cold winter.

W hen I was selected for my next pup, Lexi, I felt I wouldn’t be able to love her as I did Lee. I needn’t have worried. On Feb. 18, 2021, I got Lexi, a little yellow furball who looked up and, as I tucked her into my coat, sighed with contentment.

Every month, I charted her height on my door, and I began to think of her eventual departure. That summer, Lexi was chosen for breeding. Upshot: She’d be with me for at least another year.

The memories we made could fill a book, and someday will. Like all the dogs I’ve worked with, I brought Lexi to the facility’s weekly orientation for new arrivals. Guys on the compound, registering her growth, asked, “Is that the same dog?”

O n May 6, 2022, Lexi began a two-month “swap” with Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the women’s prison where Gloria Gilbert Stoga founded Puppies Behind Bars in 1997. (Fishkill was the next site, in 1998.) Swaps “generalize” the dog to working with others. Typically, a swap lasts one month, but Lexi’s was extended so I could work with Mikey, a funny, quirky girl who quickly grew on me. And it wasn’t just Mikey. There were other dogs who visited. Though I wasn’t their swap raiser, I enjoyed playing uncle to Lee’s brother, Vinny, and Lexi’s sister, Lori.

Still, every departure is a disconnection. It doesn’t get easier with practice, but I know I can do it. Though knowing is not always enough. With 24 years in prison and a parole hearing in sight, incarceration lands on me differently these days.

Is this a “darkest before the dawn” situation? PTSD? Anxiety and depression? Likely, it’s some funky combination. So, when I got the heads-up that Lexi would be staying for at least a year, I was partially relieved.

For 20 months we moved as partners. All you need to know about Lexi is that she’s a unicorn who happens to look like a dog. She is the best of all things: smart (seeming to learn commands by osmosis); spunky (ready to romp with big boys like her buddy, Jules); self-contained (making her own fun with toys in the yard); a rockstar partner (moving through crowds was a breeze). Because people aren't used to seeing me without a dog, I could hear in advance, ‘Hey, where is she?’”

I resisted the urge to note our last time doing something — last nail cutting, last fetch session, last night in art class. When her final morning with me came, it was so hard.

I used all the tools: writing about it, drawing, talking to others, self-referring to a mental health clinician. Staying busy helping newer raisers and making art provided the gift of space and time to work through the loss of Lexi.

I n the winter of 2023, with a week’s notice, I received Annie. She was my third dog, and puppy-proofing was old hat: set up the crate for a tiny pup, remove choking hazards from the floor and bank lots of sleep.

On Jan. 5, an instructor came after dark. She handed Phil, a puppy who looked like a baby polar bear, to my unit-mate Josue. She gave me Annie, a big-eyed little girl who was an animation studio’s version of cute. Annie’s a different dog from Lexi — they’re all unique — but she is equally lovely in different ways. She challenges me to be a better trainer.

Each of my dogs has been a teacher. Lee: Stay present, you can choose what you pay attention to. Lexi: Smile and get on with it. Annie has taught me the most. And what I’ve learned is that caring for others is my special purpose.

Annie may “graduate” this summer. She’ll be 20 months, and I’ll be going before the parole board after 25 years. Who knows? Maybe we’ll leave prison around the same time.

I sure hope so, but one thing is certain: Like the contract stipulates, we’ll part company. I will miss Annie something fierce. But I will move forward, richer for her unconditional love.

Adam Roberts is an artist, writer and actor. See his work on Instagram at @adam_drawseverything. He is serving time in New York for arson and murder.

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Analysis In its 2024 budget, the Victorian government forgets debt, dreams big and crosses its fingers

There's a clear and simple message you get from reading the Victorian government's budget papers : don't panic.

Sure, there's a few numbers that will widen your eyes.

Money the government gets in (revenue) for the next financial year is $96.1 billion, which is less than projected it will spend (expenses) of $98.3 billion.

And yes, debt is $156.2 billion rising to $187.8 billion by 2027-28 – which by that time will be 25 per cent of the value of all the goods and services produced in the state in a year (called gross state product or GSP).

And OK, that means a daily interest bill on the debt of about $15 million, climbing to more than $25 million a day by 2027.

But why worry? This is Victoria. Get with the program.

That program — if you buy into the government's vision — is a rapidly-growing population that will buy property, find employment and get around on mega-transport projects due to open just before the next state election.

There are schools, tunnels, hospitals and roads to service this swelling growth, as Melbourne (where the vast majority of Victorians live) becomes the nation's largest city, overtaking a waterside resort for squillionaires to the north that also houses normal people.

All that needs to happen is for employment to stay strong, inflation and construction costs to keep moderating, interest rates to go no higher, workers to find housing that is being built at a far slower rate than people are moving here and a few other "risk factors".

Fingers crossed, eh?

The problems

With the immense debt and still unfunded mega-projects like a circular underground railway (the Suburban Rail Loop) about to start digging, you would expect a state government 2.5-years from an election would raise money and cut costs — hard.

There's a bit of that, but not much. It's more Facebook Marketplace than selling a kidney.

The government is making extra cash by:

• Shifting commercial and industrial properties from a stamp duty (cost when sold) system to one that kicks in 10 years after the sale and is then annual.
• People dumping stuff at the tip will pay more, bringing it into line with fees for New South Wales and South Australia.
• Lifting the Fire Services Levy from where it started a decade ago to a higher level.

The savings are also pretty minimal. There's things like ending the Sick Pay Guarantee, a COVID-era pilot of paying sick leave to casuals. With a more "worker friendly" regime in power federally (the government's words) the pilot is over for now.

The Jacinta Allan-led government will also trim in costs by:

• Ending some COVID-era employment.
• Reducing office space as work-from-home and those reduced numbers impact the desks required. 
• Trimming in a program to expand state-funded pharmacy and care clinics.
• Making the money for Breakthrough Victoria, which funds speculative start-up tech businesses, stretch for 15-years rather than the original 10-years it was meant to.

It's not exactly ring all the alarms stuff is it? That's because they're not worried.

Get with the program and all cost is an investment. Public sector wages help pump private sector ones. Infrastructure unlocks value.

Remember the daily cost of that interest bill? Treasurer Tim Pallas calculates it as "1/4000th of one per cent of the economy" – an infinitesimal smidge of nothingness compared to the riches that await Victorians … if it all works out.

And there's a surprising group helping them get there.

Opposing forces

At the end of 2022 Victorians went to the polls.

After the painful repeated lockdowns in Melbourne — and with the exploding cost of keeping the state alive barely covered by a federal government accused of a lack of interest or care in the plight of the southern mainland state — there were a lot of predictions about the fate of the then eight-year-old government.

Plenty of interstate commentators had written Dan Andrews' political obituary, based on his bombastic personality, COVID-era decisions and ballooning debt.

But at the election the government didn't lose seats. It gained them.

By the time the next election rolls around Liberal-National opposition will have been in power for just four years between 1999 and 2026.

Some could say their show of unity, policy ideas and the cut-through they are making with the Victorian public show a resolute commitment to remaining in opposition.

What even is money?

Underpinning all of this are a few things that might not seem obvious.

One is the immense employment that's been delivered by infrastructure programs, public sector growth and things like "free TAFE".

Another is that the government has literally built credibility by starting and finishing big projects — new schools and hospitals, the removal of scores of level crossings — sprinkled in every corner of the state.

Adding to it is that COVID changed what people think about government, debt, and the role of the state in guiding the economy — we're seeing that federally too, as taxpayers invest billions in specific companies and industries.

If you think any government is going to leave the future to the invisible hand of the free market, you haven't been paying attention. That's gone.

A final element is that there's not a compelling competing vision about Victoria's growth and how it is being dealt with.

People can be unhappy about the untold millions spent on infrastructure, but when a new five-station underground rail line opens under the central business district next year, I don't expect a protest march out the front about the cost.

More likely is that people will use it, love it and ask a pressing question: When will there be one where I live?

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