PUDUKOTTAI DISTRICT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY DISTRICT HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT PUDUKOTTAI DISTRICT Introduction Pudukkottai district is divided into two revenue divisions, viz., Pudukottai and Aranthangi and 13 blocks viz., Annavasal, Arimalam, Kunradarkovil, Ponnamaravathi, Pudukkottai, Thirumayam, Viralimalai, Aranthangi, Avudayarkovil, Gandarvakkottai, Karambakudi, Manamelkudi, and Thiruvarankulam consisting of 763 revenue villages and 498 Village Panchayats. Pudukkottai town is the headquarters and is also known colloquially as Pudhugai. Pudukkottai District was carved out of Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur Districts on 14th January, 1974. The district has an area of 4663 sq. km. with a coast line of 39 kms. The district lies between 78.25‘ and 79.15‘ of the Eastern Longitude and between 9.50‘ and 10.40‘ of the Northern Latitude. It is bound by Tiuchirappalli District in the North and West, Sivaganga District in the South, Bay of Bengal in the East and Thanjavur District in the North East. The district is characterised by an undulating topography with residual hills in the northern, western and southern parts of the district, 1 whereas the eastern part of the district is a flat terrain consisting of alluvial plains. The elevation of the terrain of the western part of the area is about 125 m above Mean Sea Level (MSL), whereas towards the coast, it is about 1 m above mean sea level. Vellar, Agniyar and Ambuliyar rivers flow through the district, but none of them are perennial. The district has a forest cover of 1208.6 ha. and its supply is around 7.99 Cubic meter of timber, 9996.53 tons of fuel wood and 22347.64 tons of pulp wood. The soil of the district can be classified into black, red, ferruginous, lateritic, alluvial and beach soils. Black soils are formed in the western part of the district. Red ferruginous lateritic soils are formed on the high ground, south of Annavasal, west of Illupur, north of Malaipatti around Kulakurichi near Gandarvakottai, East of Arantangi around Arimalam and Alangudi. Alluvial soils consist of blackish and brownish sandy and silty soil which can be found along the course of the Vellar, Agniyar and Ambuliyar rivers, whereas, the beach sands are found along the coast of the district. The district enjoys a tropical climate. The period from April to June is generally hot and dry. The weather is pleasant during the period from November to January. The mean 2 maximum temperature is around 33.7oC and mean minimum temperature is 24oC. The normal annual rainfall recorded at various rain gauge stations in the area ranged from 833.40 (Viralimalai) to 1033.8 mm (Perungalur) with an average of 910.8 mm for the district. Status of Human Development Overall, the status of human development in the various blocks of Pudukkottai district suggests that Pudukkottai block performs well in all indices followed by Thirumayam and Aranthangi may be considered to some extent in this regard. Annavasal and Avudaiyarkovil blocks seem to be performing averagely, while the remaining blocks need attention in various areas. The HDI of Pudukkotai district‘s various blocks suggests that Pudukkottai block departs from all other blocks in the district with 0.730 HDI value. Aranthangi has a HDI value of 0.666, Thirumayam (0.582), Avudaiyarkovil (0.572) and Annavasal (0.548). The poor performing blocks are Gandharvakkottai (0.330) and Arimalam (0.389). The GII of the various blocks reveals the variations in terms of gender-wise achievements and ranges from Annavasal block with lowest GII value of .006 followed by Pudukkottai block (0.013). 3 Eight blocks have GII value more than 0.050 indicating high gender inequality in these blocks compared to the other blocks in the district. Thiruvarankulam block with a GII value of 0.105 has the highest gender inequality in Pudukkottai district closely followed by Arimalam with 0.096. This is due to the high MMR, low Female Literacy Rate, high gender gap in Literacy Rate, low Female WPR in Non-Agricultural Sector and high gender gap in Agricultural Wage Rate. The CDI of Pudukkottai district‘s 13 blocks shows moderate variations among the blocks with regard to child development with Pudukkottai block having a CDI of 0.766. Thirumayam, Aranthangi, Viralimalai and Annavasal have a CDI in the 0.600–0.700 range; Thiruvarankulam, Avudaiyarkovil, Kunrandarkovil, Karambakudi and Gandharvakkottai have in the range of 0.500– 0.600; while Arimalam, Manamelkudi and Ponnamaravathi have it in the range 0.400– 0.500. The MPI of the various blocks of Pudukkottai district shows the different levels of deprivation in the blocks wherein Thirumayam and Pudukkottai had lower MPI values from 0.239 and 0.317 respectively indicating lower deprivation. Five blocks fall in the range 0.400-0.500, while six blocks, viz., Gandharvakkottai 4 (0.678), Viralimalai (0.645), Ponnamaravathi (0.624), Manamelkudi (0.600), Karambakudi (0.597) and Thiruvarankulam (0.525) fall in the range 0.500 – 0.700. Blocks that have higher MPI values have higher deprivation. EMPLOYMENT INCOME AND POVERTY The work participation rates in Pudukkottai district has been growing and there are variations among the blocks. In the case of agricultural labourers, all the 13 blocks recorded an increase in 2011 when compared to 2001. The variations across the blocks could be explained by regional factors, occupational structure of the villages, and cultural background of the people and so on. In the sectoral GDDPs, it is encouraging to note that the secondary sector or the manufacturing sector is growing faster in the district, though the primary sector performs poorly. The tertiary sector contributes more than 60 per cent to the GDDP of the district which shows the transformation from an agricultural base to a service sector driven economy. The contribution of the agriculture sector to the GDDP is the lowest among the three sectors. The per capita income of Pudukkottai district was Rs. 24,973 in 2004-05, which grew by an average rate of 8.44 per cent per year over the reference period and stood at Rs.43,890 in 2011-12. 5 A substantial increase is noticed in the WPR between 2001 and 2011 in Arimalam, Viralimalai and Karambakudi but they differ widely in terms of economic structure. It was noticed that there was only a small increase in the proportion of main workers and decrease in the percentage of non- workers and marginal workers but, the reduction is much smaller than the increase in the percentage of total workers. The total worker population has increased in the district as well as in all the blocks. In the Cultivators category, five blocks show an increase over the period 2001 to 2011, while eight blocks record a decline. The total female workers was more in Karambakudi followed by Viralimalai but lower in male work participation rate whereas, Pudukkottai and Manalmelkudi have low female and high male work participation rate. In the case of agricultural labourers, all the 13 blocks record an increase in 2011 over 2001. There is a decline in the percentage of cultivators and household industrial workers. In terms of households provided with employment under MGNREGA in the year 2013-14, Kunrandarkovil block tops the chart with provision of jobs to 89 per cent households under MGNREGA. Eight blocks perform better than the district average of 58 per cent. Three blocks, viz., Thirumayam, 6 Manmelkudi and Thiruvarankulam performs below the 50 per cent level. The lowest poverty level were seen in Aranthangi with 30.97 per cent of the HHs below the poverty line followed by Kundrandarkoil with 31.85 per cent. Highest poverty levels were seen in Ponnamaravathi and Pudukkottai with 51.13 per cent and 48.18 per cent. Poverty in the district seems to be wide spread and pervasive among all blocks, which is a cause of concern. The major and persistent problem of Pudukkottai district is the backward dry farming so public sector investment to irrigate dry lands is urgently required. DEMOGRPHY, HEALTH AND NUTRITION There is an increase in population in all blocks of Pudukkottai district despite the fact CBR is declining. The Crude Birth Rate in the district has decreased from 17.1 in 2009 to 15.9 in 2014 and also in 11 blocks during the same period. Crude Death Rate has declined in the district thanks to improved health awareness and accessing health care services system developed by the State Government. Life Expectancy at birth in the district among females was higher than males and equaled the state averages. There has been impressive growth in physical infrastructure and personnel in public health care in the district. 7 Overall Sex Ratio (1015/1000) and Child Sex Ratio (960/1000) in the district during 2001 and 2011 was higher than that of the State and the country. IMR in the district has decreased from 15.2 in the year 2009 to 12.0 in the year 2014, due to the four fold increase in the number of physicians in the PHCs and GHs. MMR of the district (82) was higher than that of the State (68) and had not changed between 2009 and 2014. A closer analysis of the causal factors for MMR revealed that it was due to the hypertension at delivery time and high anemic status of pregnant mothers. Still birth rate in the district was 14.2 during the period 2007 to 2014. The place of deliveries reveals that all blocks and the district are performing extremely well with ten blocks registering 100 per cent institutional deliveries. In Pudukkottai district 97.7 per cent of children were immunized during the year 2013-14. The malnourishment among the children in the age group of 0-5 in the district ranges from 16.74 per cent to 38.97 per cent in the year 2013-14, with a district level of 26.00 per cent.