2005, Volume 11 No. 2

ARTICLE 3

Economic Condition and Nutritional Status: A Micro Level Study Among Tribal Population in Rural West Bengal, India

Bechuram Mondal¹, Manabendu Chattopadhyay², Ranjan Gupta^1
1 Biological Anthropology Unit, Indian Statistical Institute
² Economic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, West Bengal, India

ABSTRACT
An intensive village study was conducted to determine the income and nutritional status among tribal households in rural West Bengal during 2001. The study population comprised 232 households with cultivation as the principal occupation and distributed over three agrarian class categories viz., owner cultivator, tenant cultivator, and landless labourer. The basic purpose of the study was to examine how different sources of income and occupational groups of tribal households operate in maintaining their nutritional status measured in terms of dietary intake (mainly calorie and protein intake) and BMI of the households. The results showed that owner cultivators were relatively better off in terms of their income and nutritional status as compared to those of tenant cultivators as well as landless labourers. Further, income and nutritional status of landless labourers was relatively better than that of the tenant cultivators. These findings were not in conformity with the findings of some earlier studies, in which it was shown that landless labourers remained always poor compared to cultivators and artisan groups due to their very poor or zero asset base. The present study however, revealed that the availability of work among the landless labourer households was the main criterion of ensuring stable income and in maintaining the better nutritional status of the households. Landless agricultural labourers in this region were able to do so particularly for the development of land-augmenting technology, which created employment throughout the year in the countryside of West Bengal.

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