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STANDARD OF LIFE
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INTRODUCTION.
THE GENERAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING OF A PEOPLE is reflected in the level of income and the pattern of their expenditure. To obtain a general idea of the standard of life of the people in a district, it is necessary to analyse the income and the pattern of expenditure of different sections of the people residing in its different parts. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to give in a broad outline the patterns of income and expenditure of the socially significant sections of the population in rural as well as in urban areas of the Kolhapur district. The account is based on a sample survey conducted in 1956 in a few representative villages and in Kolhapur city. While actual observations seem to corroborate the correctness of the broad outlines of the picture so revealed, complete statistical accuracy is not claimed for the results of the survey. It is very desirable that a study of the standard of life of people should be set against the background of the general economic conditions prevailing in the area in which they live. Some relevant economic data about the district are, therefore, given below.
With an area of about 2794 Sq. miles, Kolhapur district has a total population of 1,227,547, of whom 9,50,090 that is over 76 per cent. live in rural areas and 2,77,477, that is 24 per cent. in urban areas.
The rural population of 9,50,090 is spread over 948 villages and the urban population of 2,77,000 resides in 18 towns and one city. The overwhelming preponderance of rural population indicates that agricultural classes have numerical predominance in the district. Owner-cultivators numbering about 6,63,073 constitute the bulk of agricultural population. The second largest group is that of tenant cultivators who number about 1,54,023. Landless labourers who are the lowest rung of the hierarchy of agricultural society, number about 84,636. The number of rent receivers is 26,533.
Very few people are attracted towards occupations incidental to farming. About 2,180 persons in both rural as well as urban areas are engaged in stock raising, 1,875 in rearing of
small animals and 250 in forestry. The number of persons engaged in allied agricultural occupations is very nearly 4,000. It is possible that, if proper incentive is given, more persons may find employment in these occupations.
Geographically, Kolhapur district can be divided into three zones: (1) Maval zone, (2) Transition zone, (3) Desh zone. Thirteen out of nineteen towns of Kolhapur district are located in the Transition zone. Two towns-Malkapur and Kodoli, are in the Maval zone and Jaisingpur, Kurundwad, Nandani and Shirol in the Desh zone.
The western part of the district is traversed by the ranges of the Sahyadris which have a very high altitude. The amount of rainfall in the western hilly belt is as high as about 200 inches. The central zone gets 50 to 80 inches and the third belt gets about 30 to 40 inches. There are as many as nine small and big rivers flowing placidly through the length and breadth of the district and they are amenable to irrigation with the help of which the area under sugarcane is expanding.
The soils in the Western Ghats are rocky or thin. Large area in this zone is under forest. Some lands on the hills and on their slopes are used for Kumri cultivation. In the Maval zone they are of medium depth, and rice, groundnut, kharif jowar and sugar-cane are grown. In the rabi season, the rice lands grow pulses. The third zone has deep black soils, in which kharif jowar, tobacco, chillies and sugarcane are grown.
The forest area covers 3,10,521 acres of 11 per cent. of gross cropped area of the district. Wood represents a major item in the forest produce of the district. There are also minor products like kajri fruits, honey wax,
apta or temburni leaves, sawat cotton, shembi bark, etc.
The divergence of the geographic and climatic conditions accounts for the economic variations obtaining from tract to tract. Naturally, the peasantry in the Desh zone with deep black soil and ample water facilities and in the transition belt with brown soil and ample irrigation facilities are better-off than the cultivators in the remaining part of the district. These areas are densely populated and have attained a considerable degree of industrialisation. They can be said to have presented a brighter picture with better avenues of employment and supplementary means of livelihood than the forest areas and hilly tracts of the district.
The non-agricultural population is 2,99,282 out of which 1,87,480 resides in towns and cities and about 1,11,802, in rural areas. More than a lakh persons are employed in rural as well as in urban industries. Apart from agriculture and industries, the other avenues of employment are commerce, transport and
other miscellaneous items. Whereas Vadgaon, Jaisingpur, Kurundwad and Malkapur are the important commercial centres, Kolhapur, Ichalkaranji and Hupari are important both as industrial and commercial centres. The urban centres on account of their more complex economic and social life open up avenues of employment for domestic servants, porters, hawkers, tongawalas etc. Standard of living in urban areas is naturally different from that in rural areas.
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