CENSUS OF INDIA 1971 BIHAR SERIES 4 PART VI-B SPECIAL SURVEY REPORTS ON SELECTED TOWNS DUMKA Field im'estigation and fir.l"t draf! KIRAN KANT VERMA 111l'estigaror Supervision, guidan.ce alld final draft N. M. ALVI Assistant Director Editor B. B. LAL Of THB INmAN ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE Director oj Census Operations, !1ihar 1971 CENSUS PUBLICAnONS, BIHAR (All the Censlls Publications of this State will bear Series 4) PART I-A General Report (Report on data yielded from P.C.A. and Tables on Mother-tongue and Religion)· PART l-B Genera.1 Report (Detai1cd a.na1ysis of the Demo­ graphic, Social, Cultural and Migration pattern) PART I-C Subsidiary Tables PART II-A General Population Tables (A-I, A-II, A-III &. A-IV and P.C.A.)t PART II-A (Supplelnent) General Population Tables (Standar~ Urban areas)t PORTRAIT OF POPULATIONt P~RT lI-B (i) Gene~al Economic Tables (B-1 Part A and B-II)t PART lI-B (ii) General Economic Tables (B-1 Part B, B-IlI, B-IV and B-VII to B-IX)t PART lI-B (iii) General Economic Tables (B-V and B-VI)t PART II-C (i) Social and Cultural Tables (CVII and C-VIII)t PART H-C (ii) Social and Cultural Tables (C-I to CVI and Fertility Tables)· PART lI-D Migration Tablest PART 1I1-A Report on Establishments and Subsidiary Tables on Establishment Tablest PART IlI-B Establishment Tablest PART IV Housing Report and Tablest PART V-A Special Tables for Scheduled Castes & Sahd. Tribest PART VI-A Town Directoryt PART VI-B Special Survey Reports on selected towns; PART VI-C Survey Report on selected villages PART VIlI-A Administration Report on Enumerationt, For ~ Official PART VIII-B Administration Report on Tabulat:on J use only PART IX Census Atlast PART IX-A (l) Admiaistra:tivc At1as rcillting to Patas a:ad Tirhuc Divisionst PART IX-A(ii) Adm:nistrative Atlas relating to Bhagalpur and Cho­ tanagpur Divisionst PART X-A 'Distr'ict Census' Handbook (Town and Village Directory)·· PART X-B District Census Handbook (Village and Townwise Primary Census Abstract)·· PART X-C District Census Handbook (Analytical Report and Administrative Statistics and District Census tables)$ ~--=------ ·In press. tAlrea-dy printed. :j:Present volume (Dumka Town). One volume "Madhupur Town" alreaiy printed. .·District Census Hanjbooks for all 17 districts of Patna, (Jaya, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Monghyr. Bhagalpur, Saha-sa, Pumea, Santal Pargana~, Palamau, H~zaribagh, Ranchi, I>hanbad and Singhbhum already printed. $District Census Handbooks of 7 districts (Purnea. Santal Parganas. Palamau. Haza"ibagh, Ranchi, Dhanbad, and Singhbhum) already printed and 3 districts (Shahabad, Saran and Monghyr) are in Press. CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD PREFACE VIl CHAPTER I Introduction 1 CHAPTER II History of growth of the town .. 20 CHAPTER 111 Amenities and Services­ History of growth and pre- sent position 30 CHAPTER IV Economic life of the town 59 CHAPTER V Ethnic and selected Socio­ Demographic characteristics of the population 96 CHAPTER VI Migration and settlement of families 130 CHAPTER VII Neighbourhood pattern 159 CHAPTER VIII Family life in the town 170 CHAPTER IX Housing and material culture 186 CHAPTER X Slums, Blighted and other areas with sub· standard living conditions .. 198 CHAPTER XI Organisation of power and prestige 200 CHAPTER XII Leisure and Recreation, Social participation, Social awareness, Religion & crime 208 CHAPTER XIII Linkages and Continua 225 CHAPTER XIV Recapitulation and Conclusion 234 MAP- FACING PAGE Showing Urban Land Use .. 12 Showing Average Land Value W wards 16 Showing number of houses by wards 17 Showing location of Slum Areas ]8 Showing Peri-Urli!_ftn area 28 Showing Public Utility Services 32 PHOTOGRAPHS Between pages 158-159 FOREWORD The Census bas become an indiSpensable instrument of policy and deve16pment pTannin.g. It .need hardly be stressed that a c~nsus is fib·t a mere counting of heads. It is a kind of stock-ta1cing as it were, of the nation's bliman ·wealth. Ce-nsns aims at pres~nting as complete a pictur-e df man as may be possible .in his social, cultoral and econofnlc setting. Recognising that its role is to serve the needs of the planner" policy maker, administrator ana the academician, the census or.ganisation from time to time arranges discussions with the main data users and s€eks guidance in .planning its operations. However, for a further and more realistic apprecia­ tion of the data thrown up by the census on various aspects of the Ufe of the community, it has been realised that more and more empIrical studies would havt: to be undertaken. this requirement was kept in view even while plann1ng the 1961 Census. 'The studies undertaken as ancillary to It, and parti­ cularly the sooio-economic survey of nve hundred and odd villages' throughout the country pfbvicled insight into the meaning of the statistical data m terms of real life situations. India is nO doubt predominantiy turat, but urbanisation has been rapidly occutiing. With increasing tempo of economic and industrial development of the country urbanisation would seem inevitable. Urbanisation has become sine qua non of progress. Urban centres aTe undoubtedly' the centr~s of dissemination. of Kl}Qwl~dge; ne'Y ideas,.,tec4nical ~fills al).d ~p on. This influences the life around till more and more , 1"1 r'j 1 ~ '". ,. area$ get·urbanised-. India is at thiS 'interesting transitional stage ans.:l the census org~nisation though it fjt. to ~hdertake studies to get a deeper jnsiglit into the growth of smalI towns which are likely to play an important role in the life 'and economy of the community in the near future. Under the 1971 Census a separate Towu Directory ~ivin& certain ~~siQ data pertainiJ?i !o _~cai:~~ to~n 'in the 'country \Vas brought out. This is b~ing ( +, .. ~) .... ~ "- supplemep.ted by f~irly detailed accounts of 'a few towns selected for study ali over the coUntry wliith tnay help to bring out tJ;te fntenS'Uy a:nd eftect' of the socib-econotriicforqes g'enerat¢d 'by hrb'ariisatio'n as alsb what impact urba!lisa~ion 4as'~aae on' the lrural ireighbouihood. '.I r In? consuitation with' the town ;l~]anneis, ~Ptthr~)'Po}oEists: ,soclologists, ~e6g;d.phers, r. ecoriQ- 111.1sts; gemogrdphers, etc'., the criteria -laid down ~fo:r: sel~ciion o( towns for specfaf studles were, 'sjze; :demographic feature~, such as growth rate,. deJ?sity of popul~tion 'ahd age of tOWh; fU:Q.ctibrtal" type; locatlonaltactors such as' topography anti natural environment, climate, growth pattern of the region, growth history and distance from nearest 1}letro­ ~oljtan area; nature.of.relation with otp.er towns; ii concentration of ethnic or religious group, caste or community; and other social and cultural phenomena. Towns with maximum clustering of the different criteria were preferred at the time of the selection, on an all India basis, at the same time ensuring that the various characteristics are represented in one town or the other as finally selected for the study. This study covers, among other things, the (a) growth history of towns including the infrastructure of growth and basic and non-basic economy and concomitant changes in the economic and social relations of the region, (b) growth history of the various servicing institutions in the towns in response to the different factors of change and the concomitant changes in the pattern of distribution of community power and prestige, (c) frequency and pattern of inter-action among the different segments of the population, (d) nature and inten­ sity of linka ges with other towns of the region on the one hand and the rural hinterland on the other, (e) persistence of the values of traditional society and percolation of technological values of modern civilization in the social complex of towns, and (f) other ancillary matters. A set of schedules was evolved in connection with the present survey by the Social Studies Division of the Office of the Registrar General, Tndia, under the guidance of Dr. B. K. Roy iii (}3.urman, 'Deputy Registrar General, India '(Social St:udi,es). The Survey of ,individual tQwns has been carried out mainly by the Directors .of CeF1SUS Opera.tions in the va rio u s States and Union Territories, with the technical advjce of tbe Social St:udies Division. Qualified rese.arch personnel have been placed at the dis.posal of the :Directors of Census 'O.perations/Soci~l 'Studies Division of the Office of the Registrar General, India, for carrying out the field investigations and co-ordinating the s.t.udjes of individual towns, etc. It is an encour:aging teilture that .certai.n individual scholar.s and ac.ade­ mi~ ~nstitutions have come forward to take up the studjes of sO,me towns within the framework of the present scheme. 1 J~el confident, thanks to the. enth\'l.~iasm show:n by my colleagues in the State Census Offices Jlnd the academic world? a cor.p\1s ,of knowJ®ge w,ill he built up which may be useful not only fDr academic purposes but. also .for YariOJ-ls development activIties. The credit for organising these ,studies rightly 'belpJ'lgs -to my colleagues in the Socjal Studj~s Division. I -am grateful to Dr. B. K. Roy Burman, who -was 'incharge of the Social Studies Divi~don, for stirn'Q)ating his colleagues in the Census Offices to study in depth the specific problems of social change and for developing the necessary tools for the study by devising exhaustive schedules for collecting the requisite data.