Dhaniakhali

During survey, I have noted people living nearby urban areas are more diversified in occupation - agriculture,business and service. Many prefer non agricultural occupation. This encourages migration and finally develops inferiority people, self-identity crisis and forced poverty in the villages. On the other hand, people living far away from the urban areas are engaged in their traditional occupation. Since, they have their own control over land, they were less anxious. This observation can be evident in the Hooghly district.



Below is the table supporting above assumption.
http://wbagrimarketingboard.gov.in/population-ok/Population_hoogly.htm
There is a dearth of data about distribution of SC, ST population across panchayets. Inadequate and incongruent secondary data create problem in sampling area from which the primary data will be collected.

Dhaniakhali: The block has 18 gram panchayets. Here main cultivation is paddy and potato. On 17th May, 2011, I visited this block. Here the officers of simli farm, agricultural office and BDO office are very co-operative. I am in search of panchayet wise distribution of people by caste, economic condition, literacy level, and crop intensity. Panchayet wise original data collected from the Agriculture office and BDO office were converted into rank. Finally spearman rank order correlation was computed to determine extent of association among different demographic variables (Table 1)

Table 1. Spearman rank order correlation matrix of demographic variables


3rd June (2nd visit, Somaspur-2): At 8am, I started for Dhaniakhali block from my residence. On the Durgapur express highway, there is one under pass road towards Maheswarpur. As there is no sign board, we crossed almost 20 kms away from Maheswarpur. Maheswarpur road meets 17no road. that goes to Dhaniakhali halt station. Going straight, there is one famous school- Priyonath Boso school. My student was waiting there. Next, we moved to BDO office, Somaspur block and ADO office.

I have observed the followings:

Here some farmer families have forced inferiority feeling and identity crisis with their traditional occupation. This results migration from village to city or town for the sake of Rs. 1200-Rs.2000. Where as, farmers could earn the same from own field. During psychological counseling to villagers, psychologists should pay special attention to the above psychological conflicts.

Our primary education fails to provide insight about local needs or knowledge about local resources. Farmers have no idea about how many panchayets are in the block, how many mouzas are in the panchayet but they are aware of the districts of west bengal, or the states of India. They have no idea about local resources available in own panchayet as they are not educated in this fashion.

Today, I collected population data across mouzas of Somaspur-2 panchayet. Some santal families are living here and they communicate through their own language - alchiki. But they know Bengali. Here, I have heard Bengali is the second language. Mother tongue should not be second language as I assume.

PROFILE OF SOMASPUR-2

Somaspur-2 is one of the Village in Dhaniakhali in Hooghly District in West Bengal State . It is 30.93 km far from its District Main City Chinsurah . It is 56 km far from its State Main City Kolkata .

In the Somaspur-2, following census 2001 data, there are 13862 people. Of them, 8210 (59%) people are literates. 3038 people are in cultivation. Other data about infrastructures are in below:

1. Primary school:11
   
2. High school:1
   
3. Jr.High school:1
   
4. Angan bari kendra:24
   
5. Adarsha krishi khamar:1
   
6. Upaswasthya kendra:3
   
7. Tubewells:186
   
8. Land types: 3 cropped areas
   
9. Paddyseed sources: private mostly
   
10. Irrigation: canal, kananadi
    
11. Fertilizers: chemical mainly
    

langal and dhenki are not in use.

Reference:
http://dictionary.sensagent.com/dhaniakhali/en-en/
http://india.gov.in/sectors/agriculture/index.php