Vol. 7, Special Issue 6 (2019)
Socio-economic and livelihood dependency of people of west Singhbhum district, Jharkhand
Author(s): Tanu Shree Lakra and MH Siddiqui
Abstract: West Singhbhum district of the Jharkhand lying under the eastern plateau region is divided into 18 administrative blocks with a population of approximately 12 lakh people. This district has more than 50% of tribal population and about one fourth of the population belongs to backward classes. The social profile of the district has been presented from collecting data from 160 households from 8 villages, randomly selected two blocks with the help of structured questionnaire. The data on population, caste profile, family size, house type, literacy status and occupation were collected to know their livelihood dependence on different resources. The population data has indicated dominance of male members in the district. The schedule tribal population was dominating, whereas the family size belongs to the medium size i.e., about 11 person per family. However, small family constituted of about 5 members. Throughout the district, the houses type varied from kuccha (mud house) to pakka (brick house) house. The kuccha houses were dominating type of the people’s residential houses. The literacy status of West Singhbhum district was very low as most of the people were having primary and secondary level of education. The graduate level of education was found about 7.5%. The land holdings varied from 1 hectare to 10 hectares in the district and from 1 hectare to 2-hectare land holdings were common among the local people which was observed to the tune of 74%. The main occupation of the people was agricultural practices (80%), which included crop cultivation, intercropping with forest trees, fruit trees etc. and vegetables. The livelihood of tribal people is mainly dependent on agriculture as well as on forest resources. The land use practices to increase income from their limited land resource by maximum number of households included agriculture and agroforestry (agrisilviculture, agri horticulture, silvopasture and silvihorticulture). The preferred agricultural crops are in kharif season paddy, maize and in rabi season wheat, pea whereas, vegetables crops are chilli, ginger, tomato etc. The forest tree was Gmelina arborea, Dalbergia sissoo, while preferred fruit trees were Mangifera Indica, Artocarpus Heterophyllus and Carica papaya etc. In this way adoption of agroforestry was found as one of the alternative ways of land use practices to increase income from their existing land resource by maximum number of households.
Pages: 524-530 | 566 Views 238 Downloads
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How to cite this article:
Tanu Shree Lakra and MH Siddiqui. Socio-economic and livelihood dependency of people of west Singhbhum district, Jharkhand. International Journal of Chemical Studies. 2019; 7(6): 524-530.
