PART IV-Baseline Survey of Minority Concentrated Districts-Churachandpur

PART IV RESULT OF THE BASELINE SURVEY 4.1 Religion and Caste Composition Altogether 738 households are surveyed in 25 sample villages in Churachandpur district of Manipur. All the households belong to the Christian community and all the households are from scheduled tribe communities except three who fall in the scheduled caste category (Table 4.1). 4.2 Mother tongue Mother tongue wise, all households except only one reported Manipuri as their mother tongue (Table 4.2). Bengali and Hindi are other languages known to people. 4.3 Age and Sex The total population in the 738 sample households of the district is 2563; of them 53.8 per cent is male and 46.2 per cent is female. The details of age group and sex wise distribution of the sample population are shown in Table 4.3. As the table indicates, 7.2 per cent and 11.2 per cent of the sample population are constituted by the children up to the age of 5 and 6-14 years of age group respectively. Only 0.3 per cent of the total population is of more than 60 years (Table 4.3). High fertility and low life span are suggestive of significant population as well as health dimensions. 4.4 Household Size Almost all households have the size up to five members (96.3 percent). Households with 6 to 10 members constitute 3.7 percent of the sample households. Large sized households (more than 10 persons) are absent among the sample households (Table 4.4). 4.5 Marital Status By martial status 56.8 percent of the population in the sample found currently married and 0.9 percent were widow or widower or separated (Table 4.5). Incidences of early marriage and divorce are very low among the sample population. Most frequent age of marriage is 19 to 45. Age of marriage for females is slightly less than that of males. 4.6 Educational Status The estimated literacy rate of the population in the sample villages overall is 98.51 percent. Both male and female literacy is pretty high in the sample. Male literacy rate (99.1 percent) is slightly better than the female literacy rate (97.8 percent), yielding a gender literacy difference of 1.3 percent. However, it is seen that among the literates, level of educational attainment for 74 percent is confine to the middle school level only and 87.8 percent receives education up to only HSLC (Table 4.6). The trend is same for

both male and female. Negatively skewed educational attainment is indicative of low human capital formation consequent upon school dropouts. This has special significances for designing employment and skill promotion policies. 4.7 Occupation and Employment 4.7.1 Occupation and Industry Work Participation rate is estimated to be 36.6 with the estimated female work participation rate of 14.9 percent. It has been reflected that farming is the main occupation for 68.9 percent workforce in the sample households of the district. Out of the male workers about 75 percent and out of the female workers about 41 percent were found to be absorbed in agriculture. This can be mentioned that unlike many states of India, the women in hill districts of north eastern region work full time in the agriculture field apart from looking after the domestic chores. Apart from farming, clerical and related works as well as production related works (more particularly among the women) were the most important main activity of the population in sampled villages (Table 4.7). This is reflected from Table 4.7 and Table 4.8 that agriculture being the prime economic activity of people in the villages of the district, production related works, sales and business work and certain unspecified activities are prominent subsidiary activities of people particularly for women. Coming to the context of secondary occupation, women constitute 41.2 percent of workforce majorities of them are involved in production related and petty business works (Table 4.8). The same is also revealed by the data on male main workers. Industry wise distribution of the people with main occupation (Table 4.9) shows that 63.3 percent of the total workforce is engaged in cultivation of which 48 percent is male and 15.2 percent is female. Industry wise other two important industries are construction and community social and personnel services. Intriguingly though the construction sector appears to absorb more female workforce (27.8 percent of the total female workforce) in the sample while the community, social and personnel services mostly employ male workers (around 12 percent of the total male workforce). Substantial women workers are also engaged in business and many others activities not adequately defined (Table 4.9). This is also revealed that most of the (about 82.5 percent) of the workers are engaged in work for 100 to 260 days with women having less number of days (Table 4.10). This is consequent upon the nature of work and industry they are engaged in. Since most of them are engaged in the primary sector this is reflective of seasonality of their employment. This in turn, reflects lack of modernisation in agriculture in one hand and opens potentials for employment schemes including NREGA. So far secondary activities are concerned number of days in employment is even less i.e. 96.2 percent of the workers engaged in secondary activities employ themselves only for less than 100 days (Table 4.11). Overall this is indicative of tremendous stress in the employment scenario of the district, particularly in rural areas.

4.7.2 Self-Employment Scenario This is true that many households in the villages of Churachandpur district are engaged in self-employment activities in non-agriculture sector, but with limited market orientation. The few households engaged in non-agriculture manufacturing, mostly small businesses, are facing some problems in procuring institutional credit, assured supply of raw materials, power, lack of working place and access to market (Table 4.12). These are common problems in any entrepreneurial venture in our country context. However, in a space, which is closer to international boundary and has high prospective for trades under the present open policy regime requires serious institutional intervention. 4.7.3 Additional Employment and Preference Although a sizeable section of the main labour force is engaged in agriculture, which has neither been adequately remunerative nor can generate substantial employment days throughout the year for various reasons. The overall employment scenario depicted in the foregoing sections is further supplemented by the figures given in Table 4.13 which is suggestive of potential underemployment. All together 1912 persons from 642 households out of 738 sought additional employment opportunities during the interview. The preferred options were self-employment (76.9 percent) followed by salaried jobs (13 percent) (Table 4.13). 4.7.4 Migrant Workers About 3.75 percent of the people (96 out of 2563) among the sample population were found to be migrant workers. Mostly they are engaged in variety of sundry activities. This is mostly rural to urban migration. This is visibly indicating lack of gainful employment avenues in the country side (Table 4.14). It could also be found that about 93 percent of them are long term migrant workers. 4.8 Land and other Assets 4.8.1 Cultivated Land: Ownership and Operational Holding Although most of the workforce in the sample villages is absorbed in agriculture the land holdings of the households are found small and marginal sizes. Own land, cultivable or otherwise, is found to be mostly marginal holdings (91.5 percent) (Table 4.16) and small (6.7 percent) while own cultivable land holdings are mostly marginal (94.4 percent) (Table 4.17). Distribution of operational holdings further provides that about 92 percent of the farmers are small farmers (Table 4.18). This seemingly smaller land size holding explains many of the issues related to agriculture as mentioned earlier. In the northeast land data, however, needs careful revision in the context of existing common property resource regime to put the things in proper perspective. Landlessness, and own land therefore, has certain implicit meanings in the north-eastern context.

4.9 Livestock It has been frequently seen that livestock rearing comes almost naturally in most of the hill places. This is revealed that most of rural households in Churachandpur district keep poultry (83 percent households) and rear pigs (61.4 percent). Keeping of milch animal is not a common practice in the hill areas of north eastern states (Table 4.19). Young cattle are another prominent livestock found in about 12 percent sample households. 4.10 Ownership of Productive and other Assets 4.10.1 Agricultural Implements Since most of the households are dependent on agriculture plough is the most common agricultural implement (64.9 percent) among the sample households (Table 4.20a). Pump set and sprayer are the other important implement possessed the households. Given the size class holding of land, with most of the farmers belonging to marginal and small classes, it is only obvious that modernised implements of power tiller, sprayer and fodder cutter etc. were not found among the households (Table 4.20a). So far the other important household implements and assets are concerned sewing machine, handloom were prominent among the sample households. TV, cycle, gas stove and mobile phones are other gadgets found in the sample (Table 4.20b). 4.11 Housing Status 4.11.1 House Type and availability of living space An important indicator of the economic status of a household is the type of house and the facilities available therein. The distribution of housing status among the sample households (Table 4.21) reveals that all families have their own house. No family found availing housing under the government housing scheme for the poor. This is partly because community (village) bonded by strong social capital (common example in most of the villages in north eastern hills) requires less state support in making provision of housing for the members of the village community. The common practice is that the entire community of the villages participates in and contributes for construction of house for a fellow villager. It has been found that most of the houses (84.4 percent) constructed in the villages are katcha houses made of bamboo and thatches (Table 4.22). This is typical of any hill places. It is, however, should be seen in terms of terrain, climate, availability of housing materials rather strict economic conditions of the households. Most of the households (65 percent) have more than two rooms in their houses (Table 4.23) indicating availability of adequate living space for the family. While interpreting adequacy of the living space one must also consider the family size and terrain. 4.11.2 Domestic lighting and fuel use While the village survey data reveals that 56 percent of the sample villages in the district have electric power supply, the findings from the household survey (Table 4.24) show that 36.7 percent households have electricity in their house.

In the non-electrified houses the survey reveals that the households are using mainly lantern (38.6 percent) and oil lamps (12.9 percent) for lighting (Table 4.25). Clean fuel for cooking is important for health. It is a serious consideration for women who, in most cases, are burdened with the task of cooking. As per Census 2001 data, just about 60 percent of all rural households in the country do not use any of the modern fuels such as LPG, electricity or even kerosene. The household survey reveals that all the sample households use wood as common fuel. This is common in most of the hill places. It was found that more than half of the households are using fire wood and kerosene oil as source of fuel. Various wastes along with wood are other common sources of fuel among the sample households. Modern fuel has not reached the households (Table 4.26). 4.11.3 Drinking water facilities Availability and access to safe drinking water has been one of the basic objectives under the ARWSP. The results of the household survey reveal that although public provision of tap water has been the source of drinking water for 13.6 percent of the households, it is still pond, river or/and stream the major source of drinking water for more than 85.5 percent households in the sample (Table 4.27). Only 14.9 percent of the households have access to safe drinking water. In majority of the cases, water source is located within 100 to 200 meters from the households. There are, however, about 20 percent households with drinking water source located even beyond 500 meter distance, which is quite difficult for hill areas (Table 4.28). 4.11.4 Sanitation An important requirement for sanitation is the presence of toilet facilities. 85 percent of the households reported to have toilets in their houses. 84.7 percent of the sample households are found using pit latrine in the dwelling for defecation (Tale 4.29). Another 13 percent goes to open field to answer nature’s call. Households are distinctly lacking proper sanitation facilities in the sample. 4.12 Indebtedness of rural households No households, except one who has a house building loan from cooperative, in the sample found indebted. There is scope to believe that strong social capital along with non-availability of credit sources and lesser amount of material needs to be fulfilled are the factors not leading to the debt trap. 4.13 Income and Expenditure Considering the fact that households are primarily dependent upon agriculture, arriving at robust income estimates for a year is pretty difficult. Yet it is found that about 29.3 percent households have income, which is less than the poverty line figure of Rs. 22800 per annum (Table 4.30). Note that as per the planning commission estimate of 2004-05 altogether 17.2 percent population in the state of Manipur is under poverty line.

Agriculture is found to be the main source of income among the sample households of the district. However, Table 4.31 reflects that many households have diversified sources of income although level of income across different sectors is uniformly low. Placing the earnings in different income category levels, it has been observed that majority of the households can not sustain and live comfortably depending on single source of income (leaving aside the salaried jobs). One could infer from Table 4.31 that earning from artisans jobs, trading and agriculture as well as non-agriculture wages has been at bare minimum for majority of the households. 4.13.1 Family Expenditure The estimated family expenditure of the sample households reflects that about 75.4 percent households spend less than Indian average family spending of Rs. 7200 on cereal and pulses (Table 4.32). In the case of vegetables and protein foods, it is found that about 99 percent families spend less than what average rural India spends (Table 4.33). Spending on Education, however, is more than the country average of Rs. 850 in the case of 53.1 percent households in Churachandpur district (Table 4.35). On health care, 1.5 percent sample households found spending more than Rs. 2100, which is approximately the average expenditure incurred by each family in rural India (Table 4.36). About 47.8 percent of the households do not have any health expenses. The expenditure on electricity and fuel for 90.1 percent sample households is up to 5000 per annum, which corresponds to the country average of Rs. 3000/ per households (Table 4.38). This is found that majority of sample households (95 percent) are not spending on telephone (Table 4.39). This is also found that most of the households need to keep aside a significant proportion of the budget for festival and ceremonies (Table 4.37, Table 4.41 and 4.42). Consumption of tobacco is another area of expenditure among the households (Table 4.43). 4.14 Current Educational Status, Skill Training 4.14.1 Educational attainment by religion and gender A general trend in the country is that illiteracy among the religious minorities is more than the Hindu community. This is more so in the case of the women. The data of current educational status of people in the age group of 5 to 25 years in the district of Churachandpur reflects that in this age group 4.5 percent (2 percent male and 2.4 percent female) were never enrolled or left schooling after enrolment. The students normally go to government schools (51.6 percent) as well as private schools (42.1 percent) (Table 4.44). This is because of Christian missionaries in the district who run good schools. 4.14.2 Current Educational Status of Children Looking at level of educational attainment of people of the age group between 5 and 25 years in the villages of Churachandpur, it could be seen that most of the students (79 percent), both male and female, goes to private schools (Table 4.44). One could see that educational attainment level largely confined till the level of completion of high school (Table 4.45). While interpreting this result one should take note of the age distribution of the sample population which has a heavy concentration in the age group of 6 to 14 years thereby yielding a high percentage of school goers in high school level.

4.14.3 Access and facilities in education About 80 percent of students are found enrolled in private schools. It has been found that about 80.5 percent students of the sample villages are required to travel less than 2 km to attend their school. This is found that 8.4 percent students travel more than 4 km to attend schools. English (91.9 percent) and Hindi (7.2 percent) are the mediums of instruction in the case of more than 99.2 percent students. This was reported that only 0.8 percent students are continuing their education with regional languages as the medium of instruction. This is found that very few (only 3.9 percent) students have received assistantships from government. This is reported that just 3.1 percent students have received books, 0.3 percent have received uniforms and 0.2 percent have availed the benefits of mid day meal scheme. One reason of the low proportion of government assistance could be substantive number of students enrolled in private schools in Churachandpur. Few school dropouts were reported in the sample villages (Table 4.47) and most of them are female. The reasons for dropouts are found to be largely economic - the need to earn and/or need to work at home. Marriage is found to be major reason of dropout for female students (Table 4.47). 4.14.4 Aspiration of Parents on their Children It was found that parents want that male children should pursue post graduation (58.6 percent) technical education (33.3 percent) while females should complete graduation (58.2 percent) (Table 4.48 and 4.49). It seems that the aspiration of parents regarding theirs wards education is directly influenced by economic reasons and future prospects for higher earnings. 4.14.5 Attitude and Approaches in Skill development training Interactions in the sample households reveal that only 2.3 percent are interested to take up skill development training (Table 4.50). Acquiring computer skills were found most prominent (42.1 percent) irrespective of the sexes. On job training of different types is another preferred option among the people (Table 4.50). Overall these options reveal peoples’ outlook to the changing job markets induced by the present economic environment. Most of the people prefer short term training from government institutions. 4.15 Present Health Scenario The survey reveals that about 15 percent of the total sample population have falling sick during the last year. Incidences of diseases are almost same among women and men. Most commonly reported diseases among males and females are dysentery, cough –cold and fever. Dysentery, diarrhoea and malaria are other common diseases. Gynaecological problems were also observed among women (Table 4.52). 32.1 percent of the patients were reported hospitalisation out of which 57.6 percent treated at private hospitals. So far duration of ailment is concerned, it was found that 84.7 percent cases had suffered less than one week. Only about one percent reported prolong sufferings going beyond one month duration.

4.16 Maternal and Child Health Complete coverage of immunization is found to 48.8 percent among the sampled households in Churachandpur district (Table 4.54). It was found that just 25 percent of total male children and 23.8 percent female children have received all doses of vaccines. Overall it is found that 41 percent (both male and female) received 3 doses of DPT, 50 percent male children and 48.2 percent female children have received the BCG vaccine, all doses of OPV are administered in case of 33.2 percent male and 31.7 percent female and Measles vaccine is administered in case of 55.6 percent male and 44.4 percent female children. These figures reflect certain interesting features. It seems that people take more seriously the case of BCG and measles administration compared to OPV and DPT. The reason for this could be explained by the fact that people are not aware of the required multiple doses of OPV and DPT. This is found that most of the vaccinations (98.8 percent) are done through government agency. The survey reflects that the women in the district have less access to government and institutional facilities for delivery of child. More than 78 percent of the delivery occurs at home (Table 4.55). More than 94.9 percent women delivered their babies at home assisted by untrained dais or other family members (Table 4.56). 4.17 Poor and the PDS Support Only 10.7 percent households in the sample revealed that they belong to BPL category (Table 4.57). This, however, should be viewed with the income and expenditure profiles of the households for a better picture. Among the BPL families, 93.7 percent possess BPL ration cards (Table 4.58); however, this is also reported that only 10 percent of the households as a whole in the sample avail ration from PDS shops. 86 percent of them reported to be able to buy required commodities from the PDS. The low dependency on PDS support system is partly due to irregular and insufficient supply (Table 4.60). The PDS system, plagued by many problems becomes grossly undependable for the poor. Besides, lack of money comes in way for most of the people in buying ration from the PDS. 4.18 Awareness and Participation 4.18.1 Participation in government programmes It has been argued for long that level of awareness and participation in political and socio-economic process are two important aspects of development. The Government of India has been initiating several specific programmes targeting the poor. The benefits of these programmes to a large extent depend on the level of awareness of the people about the programme. At the same time, any leakages in the process are to be properly identified for designing effective implementation. The present baseline survey on Churachandpur district indicates that peoples’ awareness about various schemes is fairly uniform. This is found that awareness level is more in the case of employment and educational programme rather than health and sanitation programmes (Table 4.61). However, the proportions of beneficiaries are much less compared to the level of awareness. Only in case of NREGA beneficiary households is substantial.

4.18.2 Participation in the socio-political affairs The baseline survey shows that the level of political participation is high among the sample households both at the state assembly elections as well as parliamentary elections (Table 4.62). This was reported that over 90 percent households have voted in the last elections. Only 1.8 percent households in the sample found to be part of Self Help Groups and about 34 percent found to be part of religious and social organizations (Table 4.63). 4.18.3 Conflict, insecurity and access to media and communication Some problems and losses related to communal conflict, and the prevailing sense of insecurity was found in the sample (Table 4.64). A few cases of property loss were reported. This is however, no loss of life. As far as the access to media and communication is concerned, the baseline indicates overall a mix level of access to media across the sample population. This is found that about 22.8 percent sample households listen to radio; about 7 percent watch TV and read newspapers (Table 4.65). 4.19 Aspirations of the Communities as reflected from the Survey 4.19.1 Most important facilities lacking in the villages The respondents feel that roads and communication, drinking water and education are the most important facilities lacking in their villages. Health is also an important facility missing in the sample villages as perceived by the villagers (Table 4.66). 4.19.2 Most important deprivation as perceived by the families Most of the families perceive that employment, health followed by housing and lands are the most important deprivations (Table 4.67). Education and skill development are also emerged as important deprivation for the sample households. 4.19.3 Perceived priorities for the welfare of minority communities The respondents feel that health, drinking water and education should be at the top of the agenda for minority development. Employment opportunities should be another priority for the welfare of the minority communities. Roads and communication is seen as another most important priority area (Table 4.68). Broadly, it is observed that drinking water, access to educational and health facilities, road communication, and livelihood opportunities are the major concerns of the people in the villages of Churachandpur district of Manipur. ■