Minority Concentration District Project Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal Sponsored by the Ministry of Minority Affairs Government of India Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta R1, Baishnabghata Patuli Township Kolkata 700 094, INDIA. Tel.: (91) (33) 2462-7252, -5794, -5795 Fax: (91) (33) 24626183 E-mail:
[email protected] Research Team Faculty: Prof. Partha Chatterjee, Dr. Pranab Kumar Das, Dr. Sohel Firdos, Dr. Saibal Kar, Dr. Surajit C. Mukhopadhyay, Prof. Sugata Marjit. Research Associate: Smt. Ruprekha Chowdhury. Research Assistants:, Smt. Anindita Chakraborty, Shri Biplab Das, Shri Somnath Das, Shri Avik Sankar Moitra, Shri Amritendu Roy and Shri Abhik Sarkar. Acknowledgment The research team at the CSSSC would like to thank Shri G. C. Manna, Deputy Director General, NSSO, Dr. Bandana Sen, Joint Director, NSSO, Shri Pawan Agarwal, Principal Secretary, MDW & ME, Shri A. Khaleque, Director & E.O. Joint Secretary, MDW, Shri A.A. Siddiqui, Joint Secretary MDW, Shri S.N. Pal, Director & E.O. Joint Secretary, Madrasah Education, Shri Arfan Ali Biswas, CEO, Board of Wakfs, Mr. Tanvir Afzal, General Manager, and Mr. Raktim Nag, Manager-Systems, West Bengal Minorities Development & Finance Corporation, Bhavani Bhavan, Kolkata and Shri Swapan Kumar Chattopadhyay, District Magistrate of Dakshin Dinajpur and other department officials for their generous support and assistance in our work. We are also grateful to Father A. Pathumai and other staff of Social Welfare Institute, Raiganj for their generous help in organising and conducting the survey. 1 Content An Overview…………………………………………………...4 Significance of the Project……………………………………5 The Survey..……..…………………………………………….7 Methodology…………………………………………………..8 Introducing West Bengal……………………………………9 Dakshin Dinajpur..………………………………………….10 Demography…………………………………………………10 Selected Villages in Respective Blocks……………………..11 Map of the District of Dakshin Dinajpur...………………...12 Findings……………………………………………………....13 1.