Town Survey Report Karaikal, Part X B, Series-32
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CENSUS OF INDIA 1981 SERIES, - 32 PONDICHERRY PART-XB TOWN SURVEY REPORT KARAIKAL Drafted by: Dr. Machavaram Vidyasagar Assistant Director Supervised by: Gaspar· Britto Deputy Director Directorate of· Census Operations Pondicherry CONTENTS Pages Foreword (v) Preface (vii) Acknowledgtitment (ix) CHAPTER Introduction 1-11 CHAPTER N History and Growth of Karaikal 13':28 CHAPTER III Administration, Amenities and Services 29-48 CHAPTER IV Economic Life of the Town 49-67 CHAPTER V Ethnic and Socio-Demographic profile of the Town 69-108 CHAPTER VI ' Migration and Settlement of Families 109-122 CHAPTER VII Neighbourhood Pattern 123-134 CHAPTER VIII Family Life in the Town 135-146 CHAPTER IX Housing and Material Culture 147-175 CHAPTER X Slums and Blighted Areas 177-187 CHAPTER XI Organisation of Power and Prestige 189-204 CHAPTER XII Leisure and Recreation, Social PartiCipation, Social Awareness, Religion and Crime 205-212 CHAPTER XIII Linkag~s and Continua 213-233 CHAPTER XIV Conclusions 235-239 Maps 1. Position of Karaikal District of Pondicherry in India (xi) 2. Karaikal District 5 3. Karaikal Municipality' - Karaikal District 9 4. Karaikal Municipality - Urban Land Use 11 iii Photographs: Pages 1. Shopping place at Thiruna"ar Road 3 2. Karaikal Ammaiyar Temple 14 3. Our Lady of Angels Church 17 4. Masthan Sahib Darga 18 5. Administrative Office 31 6. Municipal Office (New Building) 32 7. Government Hospital (Main Entrance) 39 8. Arignar Anna Government Arts College 42 9. Awaiyar Government College for Women 43 10. Housing structure (Old and New) 148 11. The Peripheral lane or slums at Seniyar Kulathu Street 178 12. Shopping Junction - Church Street 218 iv FOREWORD Apart from the decennial enumeration of population, the Indian Census is steeped in the tradition of undertaking a variety of stUdies of topical interest. In fact, the publications brought out in connection with the earlier censuses contained veritable mines of information on racial, cultural, linguistic and Sa number of other aspects of life of the people of this country. With the advent of freedom, however the scope and dimension of these special studies had to be restructured in a manner that would provide the basic feedbacks on the processes of development taking place in different spheres of life Of the people especially under planned development. Thus, in connection with the 1961 Census, a massive programme was launched inter-alia to. conduct socio-economic survey of about 500 villages selected from different parts of the count'rY. The main objective of this study w~s to know the way of life of the people living in Indian villages which accounted for 82 per cent of the total population as per the 1961 Census. There was, however, an imperative need to extend the area of the study to urban centre$ as well, to provide a complete c:overage of the people living in diverse socio-economic conditions. It was with this objective in view ancillary studies on towns were launched as p~rt of the social studies programme in connection with the 1971 Census. The programme of social studies taken up in connection with the 1971 Census, was continued without any major change at the 1981 Census as well. A study on traditional rural based handicrafts was, however, added as a new item under the social study projects of the 1981 Census. For the conduct of urban study, 64 small and medium towns were selected from different parts of the country following the criterias such as (a) size, (b) demographic featu'res, (c) functional characteristics, (d) specific industry or occupation dominating the economy, (e) location, (f) concentration of different castes and communities, and (9) other social and cultural phenomenon like temple town, health resort etc. The research deSign, tools for data collection an~ formats for data tabulation and report writing required for urban studies were originally formulated by Dr. B.K. Roy Burman, the then Deputy Registrar General, Social' Studies Division. His successor, Dr. N.G. Nag took considerable pains to revise all the formats to make them more comprehensive. Dr. K.P. Ittaman, the present Deputy Registrar General heading Social Studies Division, coordinated these studies at different levels as well as rendered necessary guidance to the Directorates of Census Operations for their successful consumation. Shri M.K. Jain, Senior Research Officer with the able assistance of Smt. S. Prashar, Assistant Director and·Smt. Sabarwal, Investigator did v a commendable job in scrutinising the reports and communicating the comments thereon to the Directorates. I am grateful to all of them. The present report is the out-come of a study on KaraikaJ town undertaken by the Directorate of Census Operations Pondicherry. I am indebted to Shri G. Britto, Deputy Director and his colleagues in the Census Directorate for their painstaking efforts in bringing out this report. V.S. VERMA New Delhi Registrar General, India vi PREFACE . Census of India, with a view to study varying types of Urban units in order to comprehensively project the operation of various socio-economic and demographic attributes at different levels of urban growth, launched a country wide project of urban studies selecting various towns in all parts of the country. Karaikal Town in Pondicherry Union Territory was one, among them selected for study after 1981 Census. This study had been initiated by my learned colleague the late Dr. Machavaram Vidyasagar, Assistant ,Director, well before I joined this Directorate as Deputy Director of Census Operations and Head, of Office. I record with deep regret the sad, sudden and premature demise of Dr. M. Vidyasagar, who has put in all his best efforts to conduct the town stydy and also prepare this report. Dr. M. Vidyasagar, had strained every nerve to make this study as useful as possible and as comprehensive and complete as possible and the result, I should say, is this report which will bear testimony to his sincerity and great devotion to the. work that was entrusted to him. Unfortunate, as it was, that he could not be alive to see this report printed and published, with poignancy I dedicate this Town Study Report to hrs memory. I have no hesitation to state that the entire credit of conducting the field study' and painstakingly pre paring this report should go to Dr. M. Vidyasagar. On behalf of Dr. M. Vidyasagar, I record our sincere gratitude to Shri V.S. Verma, I.A.S. the then Registrar General, India, for the encouragement and support given to this project. I am extremely grateful to the present Registrar General, India Shri A.R. Nanda I.A.S. for permitting me to prepare the final report. I also record our gratitude to the scholarly and expert guidance given to Dr. M. Vidyasagar by Dr. N.G. Nag, Deputy Registrar General (retired) and Dr. K.P. Ittaman, the present Deputy Registrar General (Social Studies). Our thanks are also due to Shri M.K. Jain, Senior Research Officer, Smt. S. Prashar, Assistant Director and Smt. Sabarwal Investigator in the Social Studies Division of the Registrar General, India's Office, who scrutinized the draft reports in the light of the study deSign formulated by the Social Studies Division. Dr. M. Vidyasagar has been permitted t'o use extensively the excerpts from "Glimpses of History of Karaikal" by Dr. (Smt) Saroja Sundararajan and the "Gazetteer of India"-Pondicherry edited by Shri F. Cyril Antony. Our thanks are due to them also for having permitted the author to do so. A number' of officials of Government of Pondicherry have also extended their excellent co-operation in providing relevant secondary data to this study. In the Directorate of Census Operations, Pondicherry a number of officials have assisted Dr. M. Vidyasagar and myself in preparing the report and the list of these officials is given separately. Their sincere and wholehearted co-operation is also gratefully acknowledged. Pondicherry GASPAR BRITTO Deputy Director of Census Operations Pondicherry U.T. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1. Shri V. Gopinathan, Head Assistant Supervision of Field Investigation 2. Shri P. Samidorai, Statistical Assistant Supervision of Field Investigation & Tabulation 3. Shri K.K. Gopala Pillai, Artist Cartography 4. Shri A. Philomefl Ambrose, Computor Field Investigation and Tabulation 5. (Late) Shri V. Ravikumar, Computor Field Investigation 6. Shri S. Venkatesp, Computor Field Investigation and Tabulation 7. Shri V.C. Vinaya Ram, Computor Correspondence, Documentation, Tabulation and Typing S. Smt. G. Revathy, Computor Tabulation 9. Shri K. Tamil Selvam, Computor Field Investigation and Tabulation 10. Shri M. Antoine, Computor Field Investigation and Tabulation 11. Shri R. Baguiradane, Computor Field Investigation 12. ·Shri N. Sellakrishnan, Computor Field Investigation 13. Shri K. Neelakantan, Draughtsman Cartographic Assistance 14. Shri B. Sivakumar, Lower Division Clerk Typing of Final Report 15. Smt. T. Saraswathy, Lower Division Clerk Typing of Draft Report 16. Kum. N. Indira, Lower Division Clerk Typing of Final Report ix ,,' ..' ..' .. ' ". POSITION OF KARAIKAL DISTRICT OF PONDICHERRY IN INDIA lOUNDARV. "T[IHlATIOtIAl,. ...... _._._ BOo..oARl',STAT£/UNlI* TERRITORY CAPITAL OF lNDIa..... ...• CAPITAL OF STATE/UNION TERRITORY .. _ .• ,,' 1Cl.000001'R£S 'OOE:I~Wt:':EHiO=:::::i"O~~"'E:::=:=::~O n' ..' MY A'N MAR (BURMA) , ,,' BAY .. OF BENGAL ~'Q." • ARABIAN SEA ,.. lhe Aantnlstrative headquarters of Glandigarh, Punjab nnd Haryana are at Omndigarh. (P) - Pondi &berry ",~ .~, ,,. \~( ._,I.IA' o' Port BlaIr .,. ,'. ... .Xavaratti t .... - .. -:. S,' I ? "'0 .,. , 0 ~ ".. ",\ .. .... Thiruvananthapul"am N o A E A N Ti" WTfII"""" '-"_~ftf ...................... ., .........,., ...... .tw.. n.......,'IIf........-r- ... __ IIIII ........,.. __ ,,_ ... ®..__.., .... ~ .... ~ ""',"_""""_, Ac1 ••7\ ...... ,.. h '"' ........ n........., .... " ......... ~ ... _ .. I..._IIf ........ "..." .... ....,.. .... ...,....... ........ (xi) CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Location reflects its much heard prosperity and commerCial , life of the past. Moving around, one notices an Karaikal town spread over 19.0 Sq. kms of unnatural tranquility, a feeling of the ,entire town area, (1981) is an enclave of the Union Territory of 'sleeping as it were.