HABITATIONS IN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS
THE concept of habitations followed in the preceding surveys has been retained in the present survey also. Accordingly a 'habitation' in a rural area is a distinct cluster of houses with a local name. It is a centre where people live in a compact and contiguous manner. In rural areas a village may consist of one or more distinct clusters or habitations. A habitation with population less than 25 in plain areas or less than 10 in hilly or marshy areas is not identified separately, unless it is the lone habitation in the village, it is tagged onto nearest habitation. For urban areas a town or the town group has been treated as the urban habitation. However, information on urban habitations has not been collected in this survey as in the case of rural habitations since the main emphasis has been to assess the availability of educational facilities in rural areas.
4.1 Rural habitations The present survey has identified 964,664 rural habitations which exceeds the number of habitations identified at the time of the Third Survey during 1973 by 10,921. The estimated population of these habitations is 509,163,428. These habitations are classified under various population slabs.
It is observed that 3,05,002 (31.63%) rural habitations have a population of 500 or more and even among these a large number of habitations have less than a population of 2000 each. Coming to the other
STATEMENT 4.1
Habitations and population in rural areas in various population slabs
Population slab No. of Habitations % Population
5000 & above 4,407 0.46 3,17,77,150 6.24
2000-4999 35,069 3.64 9,96,24,707 19.57
1000-1999 91,799 9.521 2,45,52,456 24.46
500-999 1,73,727 18.011 2,17,32,455 23.91
Below 500 6,59,662 68.371 3,14,76,660 25.82
400-499 68,565 7.10 3,03,77,812 5.97
300-399 93,340 9.67 3,21,32,521 6.31
200-299 1,31,630 13.64 3,20,89,225 6.30
100-199 1,83,414 19.01 2,65,47,322 5.21
Below 100 1,82,913 18.95 1,03,23,780 2.03
Total 9,64,664 100.00 50,91,63,428 100.00
HABITATIONS IN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS 13
cases of habitations with less than 500 population it is found that the number of habitations in the population slabs below 200 are much more than the total number of habitations in the population slabs 500 or more. It is these smaller habitations which have to be borne in mind while considering the educational facilities at the lower stage. However, coming to the population in these habitations it is observed that although habitations with population of 500 or more constitute only 31.63% of the rural habitations in the country, they account for 37,76,86,768 (74.18%) of the rural population.
Amongst the States, Bihar (1,04,004), Madhya Pradesh (1,07,7 10) and Uttar Pradesh (2,35,065) together account for 4,46,777 (46.31) rural habitations in the country while Nagaland (989) is the lone State with less than 1000 rural habitations. Amongst the Union Territories only Chandigarh (30) and Lakshadweep (10) have less than 50 habitations each, while Arunachal Pradesh (3,117) and Goa, Daman & Diu (2,352) each have more than 1000 habitations.
Coming to habitations in the different population slabs it is observed that the border States like Himachal Pradesh (97.06%), Jammu & Kashmir (82.64%), Meghalaya (93.70%), Sikkim (96.25%) and Tripura (84.72%) have more than 80% of the rural habitations in the population slabs with less than 500 population. Among other States Madhya Pradesh (76.39%), Orissa (78.41 %) and Uttar Pradesh (78.73%) have more than 75% of the rural habitations in this category. Amongst the Union Territories, Andaman & Nicobar Islands (83.37%), Arunachal Pradesh (93.29%), Dadra & Nagar Haveli (96.74%) and Goa, Daman & Diu (82.87%) contain more than 80.0% habitations with less than 500 people.
4.1.1 Habitations per village In this survey 6,76,162 villages have been identified of which 5,73.842 (91.64%) are inhabited and 52,320 (8.36%) are uninhabited. Thus the average number of habitations per inhabited village is 1.68. Among the States only Kerala (5.79%) and Sikkim (6.33) have the largest number of habitations per village and the States of Jammu & Kashmir (2.16) and Tamil Nadu (3.06) each have more than 2 habitations, on an average, per village. Among Union Territories, Dadra & Nagar Haveli (5.97) and Goa, Daman & Diu (5.76) have a high average of habitations per village.
4.2 Urban habitations As many as 3,573 urban habitations that is, cities/townships and towns have been identified in this survey with an estimated population of 13,20,81,000. Due to non-availability of rate of migration from rural to urban areas, these figures have been obtained on the basis of the projections made by the Registrar General's Office for March 1,1978 and deducting the rural estimated population from the total population.
4.3 Habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
All the habitations having a population of 500%, or more belonging to either Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes have been identified as habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes or predominantly populated by Scheduled Tribes. Out of 9,64,664 rural habitations, 69,058 (7.1%) were found to be predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes and 1,53,778 (15.9%) by Scheduled Tribes population. Himachal Pradesh (17.0%) amongst the States has the largest proportion of the habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes, followed by Punjab (10.6%), Tamil Nadu (12.7%), Uttar Pradesh (10.3%) and West Bengal (14.5%) each of which has more than 10% habitations in this category. Nagaland is the lone State where no habitation is predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes. Amongst the Union Territories, Chandigarh (13.3%) and Pondicherry (16.8%) have high proportion to habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes while Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Mizoram have none in this category.
As could be expected the States of Madhya Pradesh (39.3%), Manipur (66.7%), Meghalaya (97.2%), Nagaland (100.0%), Orissa (39.9%) and Tripura (64.8%) have a very high proportion of habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Tribes while Andhra Pradesh (17.6%), Assam (17.7%), Bihar (21.1%), Gujarat (28.6%) and Maharashtra's share is also appreciable. On the other extreme are the States of Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Sikkim where there is not even one habitation in this category. Among the Union Territories, while Chandigarh, Delhi and Pondicherry have no habitation in this category and Goa, Daman & Diu (0.5%) has a very small percentage in all others the proportion of habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Tribes is very high and in Lakshadweep and Mizoram it is 100%.
A cursory glance at the distribution of the habitations reveals that more than 80% of the habitations in these categories are concentrated in population slabs below 500, the exact percentage being 80.91 % for the habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes and 88.39% for the habitations predominantly
14 FOURTH ALL-INDIA EDUCATIONAL SURVEY
populated by Scheduled Tribes. In fact, 49.69% habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes and 56.18% habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Tribes are in the population slabs below 200. Further, about 26.90% of the habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes and 28.90% of the habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Tribes have a population less than 100. It is these areas which need special attention in extending educational facilities.
STATEMENT 4.2
Habitations predominantly populated by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes in various population slabs
Habitations predominantly populated by
Population slab Total habitations Scheduled Castes Scheduled Tribes
Number % of col.2 Number % of col. 4 Number % of col. 6
wrt its total to col. 2 to col. 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5000 & above 4407 0.46 57 1.3 38 0.9
2000-4999 35069 3.64 801 2.3 514 1.5
1000-1999 91799 9.52 3242 3.5 2991 3.3
500-999 173727 18.01 9059 5.2 14305 8.2
Below 500 659662 68.37 55879 8.5 135930 20.6
400-499 68565 7.10 4368 6.4 8846 12.9
300-399 9334 9.67 6671 7.1 14856 15.9
200-299 131610 13.64 10565 8.0 25851 19.6
100-199 193414 19.01 16299 8.9 41958 22.9
Below 100 182913 18.95 17976 9.8 44439 24.3
Total 9,64,664 100.00 69058 7.1 153778 15.9