DETERMINANTS OF RURAL NON–FARM EMPLOYMENT/NON–AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT IN DROUGHT PRONE REGION OF WEST BENGAL: ANALYSIS OF CENSUS DATA

Dr. Chitta Ranjan Pal

Volume : VI, Issue : III, March - 2016

DETERMINANTS OF RURAL NON–FARM EMPLOYMENT/NON–AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT IN DROUGHT PRONE REGION OF WEST BENGAL: ANALYSIS OF CENSUS DATA

Dr. Chitta Ranjan Pal

Abstract :

 In India, as in most parts of the developing world, labour absorption in agriculture and in the urban industrial and service sectors has not been fast enough to absorb the growing disguised labour force. Consequently, despite rural–urban migration the problems of poverty, unemployment and underemployment have persisted in both rural and urban areas. Under these circumstances, diversification of the rural economy is seen as an important element of the development strategy. The Drought Prone (DP) region is distinct from other parts of the West Bengal in terms of social composition and has a relatively high proportion of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes to total population with their own culture, language and style of living. As growth rate of agriculture sector is very poor, the non–farm/non–agricultural sector may provide better scope for employment particularly in the drought prone region of rural area. A certain shift in occupational structure of rural workforce (both male and female) is clearly noticed in the Drought Prone (DP) districts in favour of *non–farm/non–agricultural employment. Three drought prone districts (Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia) witnessed positive growth of rural non–farm workers (RNFW) /non–agricultural workers (RNAW) during 1971 to 2011. It is also fairly established that West Bengal as a whole and the DP blocks of the state witnessed substantial variations in rural non–farm employment / non–agricultural employment (RNFE/RNAE) across districts and blocks. Therefore, some questions that arise are: What factors explain the growth as well as variation in RNFE across the DP blocks? What hypotheses are there to explain the same? Which hypothesis or hypotheses is / are important to explain the same? Which factors are dominant for the growth of RNFW/RNAW and its variation across the DP blocks and villages? The present endeavour seeks to address these questions with reference to the DP blocks of West Bengal. It can be said that there are two oad ingredients that spurt non–farm employment in rural areas. These two factors are ‘Pull’ and ‘Push’ factors. Agricultural prosperity, rural infrastructure try to pull the labour force away from agriculture towards non–farm activities while the distress factors tend to push the rural workforce to go in search of low–paid / residue jobs.