Journal of Global Resources

Volume 3

July 2016
Page 139-145
ISSN: 2395-3160 (Print), 2455-2445 (Online)

17

SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITION OF FLOOD AFFECTED HOUSELESS POPULATION: A
CASE STUDY OF PANCHANANDAPUR VILLAGE
Chand Sultana1, NasimAktar2 and Shamsul Haque Siddiqui3
1

BSR Fellow, 2Project Fellow3Chairperson and Coordinator DRS-III
Department of Geography, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
Email: chand.sultana0576@gmail.com

Abstract:‘Houseless Population’ refers to those people who are not living in Census houses.
Houseless is the situation of having no home or permanent abode. Those in this situation
include people living on the streets, in hostel, squats, or in temporary accommodation with nopermanent right of tenure.They constitute a significant proportion of a village population andare steadily growing in number creating a serious imbalance in the functions and morphology
of a village. Due to the occurrence of flood in each and every year along the embankment of
Pagla river caused a pitiable condition in the study area. On this backdrop, the present study
endeavours to explore the socio-economic conditions of flood affected houseless population
living in Panchanandapur village of Kaliachak- II block of Malda district. They lead a verypoor
life with in fact no possessions.
Key words: Flood, Houseless Population, Pitiable condition, Socio-economic condition
Introduction
Floods generally refer to a situation of water accumulation in places that are normallysubmerged. Heavy rainfall is the main cause of inland flooding. Another hand, natural hazards
that cause inland flooding are melting snow, glacial outbursts, and dam break flows. Flood inriver valley region is a disaster which can destroy the total environmental set up of the area. Itcauses river bank erosion, depression of land, shifting of river course, river channel wideningetc. due to its high discharge, elevation, volume and longer duration. The increase in thefrequency of floods has generally been caused to climatic change. Flood situation arises inIndia almost every year and hence it is important to prepare for a disaster in advance. Floods
displace a number of people and cause heavy loss of life and property which leads to increase
large number of poverty, agricultural deficiency, unemployment, and even starvation death.
The economy also gets affected due to damage of crops direct or indirect affecting theagriculture sector. The country needs a better, emergency and effective flood mitigation
system to ensure the safety of its people and economy. According to Carter, “Floods have thefollowing characteristics (1991): long, short and no warning, depending on the type of floods(for example, flooding within parts of a major river may develop over a number of days or evenweeks), speed or onset may be gradual or sudden; and there may be seasonal patterns offlooding”. Flood is one of the most important disasters which can destroy the total physical andsocio-economic environmental set up of the area and occurred almost in all part of the world.
Flood may be occurred seasonally in same portion in the world and sometimes suddenly139

occurred in the world due to physical phenomena and human factors.Several villages under
Kaliachak-II were submerged as water gushed in a wide breach in the study area, a district
official said. Most parts of Panchanandapur village were flooded as Ganga and Paglarivermerge nearby areas and create the situation from ‘extreme danger’ to ‘danger’ mark along theareas.
The Census of India defines “houseless population” as the person who are not living in
Census houses. Houseless is the situation of having no home or permanent abode. Those inthis situation include people living on the streets, in hostel, squats, or in temporary
accommodation with no permanent right of tenure. Census enumerators are instructed to takenote of the possible places where the houseless population is likely to live such on theroadside, pavements, in Hume pipes, under staircases or in the open, temples, mandaps,platforms and the likes. They are described variously as homeless, houseless roofless, shelter
less people and pavement dwellers. Problems of reliable estimation and clear definition ofhouseless population are encountered in the surveys conducted for Indian cities. The lack ofuniversally agreed definition of houseless in most countries allows policy makers to forget
about houseless people, who live desperately hard lives with no shelter or social security’sprotection, and sustaining cities with their cheap labour. They lead a very poor life with in fact
no possessions. Often, the homelessness is caused by multiple and interrelated physical,social, economic, political and environmental factors. With a population of well over 1.2 billion
people, India is the second most populous nation in the world. The total houseless populationin 2001 is 1,943,476 (0.19 per cent) which is decreased by 1,772,889 (0.15 per cent) in 2011.
India's per capita income, although rising, rank's 124 in the world.
West Bengal share 7.56 per cent of houseless population among the states and union
territories of India. Left bank erosion of the Ganges upstream of Farakka Barrage has
rendered nearly 4.5 lakh people homeless in Manikchak, Kaliachak I, II and III and Ratua
blocks over the last three decades of the past century. The worst hit area is between
Bhutnidiara and Panchanandapur in Kaliachak II block. According to the Ganga Bhangan
Pratirodh Action Nagarik Committee 750 sq. km area was lost in 30 years in the Manikchak
and Kaliachak areas. Panchanandapur village was worst affected as Ganga and Pagla rivermerged which compels the people of this village to become houseless.
Objectives
The major objectives of this study are:
• To analyse the impact of flood in the socio-economic condition of houselesspopulation.
• To suggest some remedial measures.
Database and Methodology
The present work is based on empirical study. It examines the socio-economic condition of thehouseless population. Respondents have been selected from the different location of thePanchanandapur village of Kaliachak-II block of Malda district. The survey was carried out
during the months of June-July, 2015. Data was collected through interview schedule. For this
100 houseless respondent were interviewed in the different parts of the village. After collection140

of data, for the purpose of data analysis the frequencies of the responses of the houselesspopulation were conducted and percentages were calculated through simple statisticalmethods. After that the data were converted into tabular form. With the help of this table thestatistical diagrams have been drawn.While selecting the sample, two points were kept in mind
firstly, they have different occupations, and secondly, their income level varies.
Study Area
Panchanandapur village is popularly known among the villages of Kaliachak –II block of Malda
district of West Bengal. According to the census of village have 26358 of total population, in
which the total male population is 13512 and female population is 12846. In this village thetotal literate population is 13578, in which 7694 and 5884 male and female persons are literaterespectively. In Panchanandapur village the total number of illiterate persons are quite high i.e.
12780, in which the male illiterate is 6962 and female illiterate is 5818. The total worker
persons in Panchanandapur village is 11167, in this 6827 and 4340 are the male and female
worker population respectively (Census 2011).
Fig.1: Location Map of Study Area

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Discussion:
Socio-Economic Condition
The present study examines the status of flood affected houseless population inPanchanandapur village of Kaliachak- II block of Malda district. This is an important matter as
it reflects condition under which houseless have live in this village. Firstly, we sketch a profileof houseless covering their age, sex, and literacy standard. This is followed by a study of theirnature of work, income etc.
Age - Structure
Table 1reveals the houseless population of Panchanandapur village has been classified into
five categories on the basis of age group. This table shows that 20 per cent of the respondentslie below the age-group of 20 years, 18 per cent of the respondents fall in the category of 2130 years, 27 per cent and 15 per cent respondents fall in the category of 31-40 years and 4150 years respectively. On the other hand 20 per cent of the respondents fall in the age-groupof more than 50.
Table 1 Age, Sex and Marital Status
Age Group
Percentage
Sex-Composition
Percentage<2020
Male7121-30
18Female
29
Marital Status
Percentage
31-40
27
41-50
15
Married73>50
20
Unmarried
27
Source: Based on Primary Survey, June-July, 2015

Table 1 depicts the percentage distribution of sex composition of respondent in thisvillage. It is clear from this table that about 71 per cent male respondents found during survey,
but the percentage of female respondents were 29 per cent which is less than half of thepercentage of male respondents.
Marital Status of the Respondents
Table1and figure 4 shows the distribution of marital status of respondents. About 73 per centrespondents are married and 27 per cent are unmarried. The persons who were married
migrated to the town in search of employment because they have lots of responsibility towards
their family members. Unmarried persons only earn for themselves and spend it only on theirfood, entertainment, bidi, cigarette etc.
Educational Status of the Respondents
From table 2.it is clear that the educational attainments among the sampled homeless dwellers
are extremely poor on an average, only 20 per cent of them are literate as they avail very lessamount of Government facility to get educate as we find that 80 per cent of respondent are
illiterate. Due to illiteracy, houseless does not find better employment. They engaged in bidi
making, rickshaw pulling, tea selling, lumbering etc.

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Table 2 Educational Status
Educational Status
Illiterate
Literate

Percentage
8020Source: Based on Primary Survey, June-July, 2015

Occupational Structure of the Respondents
Table 3 shows occupational structure and migratory status of the respondents. Highest
proportions of respondent i.e. 35 per cent of respondents are cultivators. About 25 per cent ofthem are wage labour, while 23 per cent of them are engaged in bid making. Only 7 per centof the respondent has the services. Only 5 per cent respondents earn their livelihood byboating in river and business respectively.
Table: 3 Occupational Structures, Daily Income and Migratory Status
Occupation
Percentage
Daily Income
Percentage
Cultivation
35<10025Wage Labour
25
100-20055
Bidi Making
23>20020
Boat man5
Migratory Status
Percentage
Business
5Within Block64
Service7
Outside Block36
Source: Based on Primary Survey, June-July, 2015Daily Income of the Respondents
The average income of the respondents is low as most of them were engaged in primaryactivities as well as informal sectors. Their daily earnings range between less than Rs. 100
and more than Rs. 200. Their income depends on the nature of their occupation. 25 per centof the respondent earned less than RS. 100 per day while 55 per cent of the sampled dweller
earned in between RS. 100- 200 per day. Remaining 20 per cent of them earned more thanRs. 200 in a day.
Migratory Status of the Respondents
Most of the respondent i.e. 64 per cent respondents were migrated within the block due to lossof their properties in flood, whereas only 36 per cent were migrated outside the block. It isobserved that the people of Panchanandapur village migrated to neighbouring villages like
Babla, Motahabari, Uttar Lakshmipur, Gangarampur etc. as those villages have the better
facility in terms of accessibility. They temporary construct their houses in the vacant land of theGovernment or along the road side.The losses and erosion caused by the frequent floods
have compelled the rural people to displace from their birth place to the other safer places
outside the block like Kaliachak-I block, Kaliachak-III block, Malda Town, Malda Railway
Station etc., as it offers the safest refugee areas and reflect more new resettlement and it
offers more earning opportunities to the resettled families.

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Losses of Resources Caused by Flood
Flood is a natural phenomenon. But it is widely evident that the flood experience andincreased the destitution of resources. During survey it is found that 44 per cent respondents
lost their agricultural land, 38 per cent of lost their houses and 18 per cent respondent losttheir other resources like life, livestock, properties etc (Table 4).
Table 4 Losses of Resources Caused by Flood
Losses by flood
Agricultural Land Loss
House Loss
Other Loss

Percentage
4438
18

Source: Based on Primary Survey, June-July, 2015

Conclusion
Panchanandapur village is situated along the bank of Ganga River, so that flood is a frequent
phenomenon in this village. Flood has its virtuous as well as cruel affect which compel them tobecome houseless. During this situation the basic amenities are totally lacking, family income
is low, most of the family members illiterate and because of these have different outlook
towards life. Problem faced by houseless people are poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, healthproblem, lack of food availability etc. Thus, the fact emerges that the flood affected houselesspopulation in the study area are socio as well as economically very poor and backward. The
study explains that juvenile and senile dependency was a common feature of houselesspopulation. Most of the households are very poor had hardly have any savings and given theamount of relief being so small and their land, in most cases, which is the main source of theirlivelihood being lost, they find it difficult to maintain their basic food security. From the above
discussion it is clear that only 20 per cent of them are literates, sex composition is roughlybalanced, they are employed mostly in low-income informal activities. It is also observed thatthey have very poor income having daily income of less than Rs. 100 and only 20 per cent ofthem have Rs. 200 and above. Thus, they can save a little and often suffer from malnutrition.
So we think it is the right time to think about them and need immediate attention for
Government as well as Researchers.
Recommendations
The homeless population in the study area are evidently socially and economically poor andbackward. Their life can be changed and upgraded with the following recommendations:• Construction of dams should be considered to trap the excess water. This could also
be used for irrigation purpose.
• The relevant authorities should delineate flood affected areas, and temporarily shelter
should be timely provided to the flood affected people.
• Government and key stakeholders should be engaged the communities and local
authorities in making them aware about flood risk in view of the climate variability.
• Construction of canals into the main Ganga and Pagla River.
• There should be a deliberate policy to compel people of Panchanandapur to build
houses using durable materials and away from the flood prone areas.

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••
•
•
•

Active participation of the people to maintain losses, e.g. construction of advance flood
shelters for people as well as livestock.
Storage of sufficient food, drinking water and other essential goods before occurrenceof floods.
Rescue and relief operations should be quickly taken by government as well as NGO.
People must follow the existing rules and regulations for prevention and mitigation offloods.
Lastly, government should control the corruption in government bodies and to improve
the ability of administrative workers. So that the condition of houseless population
might be improved.

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