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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Proportion of cultivators drops by 10% in 10 years

FARMING LOSES OUT TO WHITE COLLAR JOBS, MORE THAN HALF THE WORKERS LINE UP AS ‘OTHER WORKERS’ IN SIKKIM
GANGTOK, 17 May: The Directorate of Census Operation, Sikkim, today released another set of Primary Census Abstract containing population data on sex ratio, child population (0-6), literacy, proportion of Scheduled Caste/ Schedule Tribe and workers.
Speaking on the occasion, PIB Director CK Dorjee, who was present as the chief guest, informed that the Directorate of Census Operations, Sikkim has already released Provisional Population Paper I & II containing  Provisional Total population of the state, literacy rate, sex ratio, Rural-Urban Population, based on Enumerator’s Abstract.
It has also released the 1st phase housing data based on scanning on a data sheet as well as in book form which included the number of census houses, households, the condition of the census houses, amenities available to the households and assets possessed by them.
He said the Census Office is  releasing the data for second phase i.e. Population Enumeration on a data sheet viz. ‘Primary Census Abstract – At a Glance’, that will provide information on population and its growth, literates and literacy, sex ratio for whole population and in 0-6 age group, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Population, Workers and Work Participation Rates .
Directorate of Census Operation, Sikkim Additional Director, Dr DK Dey made a power point presentation on population enumeration and said his office will release the final population at sub-district level and will also release shortly the data at village level in rural area and ward level in urban areas.
He informed that the final population of Sikkim as on 01 March 2011 was 6,10,577. This included rural population of 456,999 and urban 153,578; and Male 323,070 and female 287,507. The sex ratio of Sikkim has improved from 875 in 2001 to 890 in 2011. However, the Child Sex Ratio [0-6 year] has declined from 963 in 2001 to 957 in 2011. Again, the proportion of children to the overall population has dropped from 14.5 percent in 2001 to 10.5 percent in 2011. This was already expected when Sikkim’s population growth rate more than halved in the decade 2001-2011 in comparison to population growth from 1991 to 2001. While Sikkim’s population grew by 33.4% in the decade 1991 to 2001, the next decade from 2001 to 2011 saw population grow by only 12.89%.
Meanwhile, Work Participation Rate in Sikkim is 50.5 percent bagging it the second rank on this indicator among all states/UTs of the country. Work population rate is defined as the percentage of total workers [main and marginal] to total population. Workers have been categorized as cultivators, agricultural labourers, household industry workers and ‘other workers’. The last segment, that of other workers, takes the largest pie of workers at 51.8%, with 38.1% of the workers being cultivators who work on their own farms, followed by agricultural labourers who make up 8.4% of the workers in Sikkim with a sliver of 1.7% of the workers engaged in the household industry.
Sikkim has 1,17,401 cultivators, outstripped significantly by 1,59,608 ‘other workers’.
A significant decadal comparison comes in the change in proportion of cultivators to the total number of workers in Sikkim. Where 49.9% of the working population was of cultivators, people working on their own farms in 2001, in 2011 this has fallen to 38.1% of the workers. This slightly over 10% loss in the cultivator proportion has gone to “other workers” whose proportion has grown from 42% in 2001 to 51.8% of the total workers in 2011.
Dr. Dey also mentioned that the number of Literates in Sikkim is 444,952 with rural 321,930 and urban 123,022. The literacy rate in Sikkim is substantially high at 81.4 percent. Among the states of India, Sikkim stands on 7th position. So far as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes are concerned, proportion of Scheduled tribe population has gone up from 20.6 percent in 2001 to 33.8 percent in 2011. This, because the Limboo and Tamang communities were added to the ST list in 2003-04 meaning that while they were not counted as ST in Census 2001, they were enumerated as such in 2011.
Dr Dey also sought the cooperation of the people of the state for the smooth conduct of the second phase of National Population Register i.e. capturing of biometry.  He mentioned that the decision of the Govt. is that wherever biometry has been taken up by the UID, only photocopy of the Aadhaar number will be taken. It is mandatory since NPR is being conducted under Citizenship Act 1955.

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