Chapter 8: In conclusion: rural households of Assam require continuous food based interventions provides a commentary on the role and significance of food based welfare
3.1 METHOD OF SAMPLE SELECTION
Chapter 3
The Study Area and Profile of Villages
This chapter discusses the method of selection of sample households. Geographical location and distinguishing socio-economic characteristics of the households in both sample villages are described, on the basis of census enumeration of the households. As discussed in chapter 2, the ranking of the districts based on WFP‘s three dimensions of availability, accessibility and absorption shows wide disparities in food security across the districts. The selected indicators of these dimensions show that Dhubri district ranked the relatively worst and Jorhat district ranked the relatively best. Therefore, to assess the performance of food based welfare programmes in Assam, Dhubri and Jorhat were selected.
The village survey in Chaudhurirchar revenue village (Dhubri district) and Kumargaon revenue village (Jorhat district) were carried out in 2015. A census enumeration of all households based on houselisting schedule followed by the sample survey was carried out in both the villages in May-June 2015 and November 2015 respectively. The unit of study is the household. I have used the Census of India definition of household, i.e. all members of households taking food from the same kitchen during the reference period under consideration.14
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as already explained in Chapter 2. The second stage was selection of community development blocks followed by selection of revenue villages from the block. In the final stage, households were selected following the method of simple random sampling without replacement.
I had various rounds of discussions with the district level officials of Directorates of Food, Civil Supply and Consumer Affairs (FCSCA) and Health Services to be able to identify the blocks and revenue villages where the household survey questionnaires could be administered. The FCSCA in both Dhubri and Jorhat provided me a list of model PDS villages where TPDS have been identified as being implemented successfully. However to be able to understand the shortcomings of TPDS functioning, instead of considering the model villages as my study area, I purposively decided to choose those areas which have been officially identified as having low health outcome indicators and therefore the need of food based welfare programmes can be considered as significant. For this purpose, I had further discussions with the Directorate of Health officials who could indicate me blocks and revenue villages where health outcome indicators are low.
The official records of the Joint Directorate of Health in Dhubri showed that the problem of hunger is acute in char areas affected by floods. Therefore I decided to select a char village which was flood affected and yet was most easily accessible from the main town of Dhubri. Based on Census 2011, the total number of CD blocks in Dhubri was 15 in number. I purposively chose to study Birsingjarua CD block as it was closely located to the Dhubri town and facilitated my travel and stay during the period of study. From this block revenue village Chaudhurirchar was selected in consultation with the Directorate of Health officials as according to them the dependence on PDS in this particular village was high.
Since the overall characteristic of Dhubri district pointed to a very high incidence of floods and soil erosion, studying a char village became significant as I assumed that people‘s
dependence on food based welfare programmes will be relatively higher. In the village listing of Census 2011, Chaudhurirchar Part -1 and Part -2 appear as two separate revenue villages.
From my field survey, the total number of households in Chaudhurirchar Part-1 was 11, whereas Census 2011 recorded 30. In Chaudhurirchar Part 2 the total number of households during my field survey was 116, and the Census 2011 recorded 113. I studied both revenue villages and for data analysis combined them for presentation as only Chaudhurirchar Revenue village. Combining both revenue villages for data analysis did not pose any problems as there were no significant socio-economic differences among both villages. From the consultations that I had with people in the village, I was informed that large numbers of households had been displaced from these villages due to regular floods and soil erosion.
Similarly, in Jorhat, hunger and malnourishment was identified as being high in the char areas; these were also the areas that were predominantly tribal and had high incidence of tea garden labourers. A similar consultation with Directorate of Health officials were carried out in Jorhat and the revenue village Kumargaon from CD block Jorhat North West was selected as my study area. The total number of CD blocks in Jorhat according to Census 2011 was eight. Kumargaon was also severely flood and soil erosion affected. While the Registrar General of Census of India and other official records refer to this village as Kumargaon, residents mention the name as Vitorkokilakumargaon. After validation with data emerging from the Census and discussions with the village Headman I have stuck to the Census name of Kumargaon.
The selection of study villages and sample households is shown in figure 3.1. The district map and location of village is shown by figure 3.3 at the chapter end.
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Figure 3.1 A flowchart showing selection of revenue villages
3.1.1 Sample design
The survey was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, a complete enumeration of all households in both revenue villages was done with the help of a structured questionnaire, where information on household size, education, marital status, occupational status of the household members, status of ration cards, status of having access to various food based welfare programmes, land holding position of the households and households having access to two square meals a day was collected. From the house listing it was found that total number of households in Chaudhurirchar was 127 and in Kumargaon 111. Based on the houselisting data, 40 per cent of households were selected through simple random sampling in each revenue village. Thus in Chaudhurirchar village 51 households were sampled and in Kumargaon village 45 households were sampled.
Figure 3.2 A flowchart on selection of sample households