CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

PROVISIONAL POPULATION TOTALS - 1 2 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

The Provisional Population Totals Paper 1 of 2011 was published during the 1st Week of April, 2011 where as on the 00:00 hours of 1st March 2011, the total population, number of males and females, children in the age group 0-6 years’ population, sex ratio, were declared upto district level. Now in this PPT Paper II, Volume II, the population of the state, related data and analytical notes are presented for rural and urban areas of the state and for each District Rural Development Block. All the data given in this publication are provisional in nature as it was in Paper I.

For the benefit of data users, some concepts and definitions adopted in the Census 2011 are as mentioned below.

JURISDICTIONAL CHANGES IN THE STATE

There have been Jurisdictional Changes after Census 2001; four new Rural Development Blocks have been created namely Bilkhawthlir, , Bungtlang ‘S’ and Saiha, and one new Notified Town has been created namely . RD Block has been transfered to after Census 2001, earlier it was under . Creation of new RD Blocks caused changes in the jurisdiction of the existing RD Blocks and the Districts. In the Census 2011, there are three RD Blocks namely Tlangnuam, Thingsulthliah and E. Lungdar which jurisdictions cover villages and towns of two different Districts each. Statement 1.1 Administrative units in Mizoram - 2001 & 2011 Administrative units 2001 Census 2011 Census 1 2 3 District 8 8 Rural Development Block 22 26 Village 817 830 Inhabited 707 704 Un-inhabited 110 126 Town (Notified) 22 23

Mizoram state is divided into 8 districts. Unlike other states, Mizoram does not follow the system of Tahluk/Tahsil, etc. so that Rural Development Block areas have been taken as units to demarcate lower formation of geographical and administrative areas in the state. Four new RD Blocks were created after Census 2001 while there was only 22 RD Blocks in 2001 Census. In Census 2011, there are as many as 830 villages and out of which, 704 villages are inhabited and 126 villages are uninhabited. There are 23 Notified Towns and it increased by one after 2001 Census.

RURAL-URBAN FRAME

The term “Rural” in respect of Census Operations indicates all the villages in the state and the term “Urban” stands for notified towns and cities. The enumeration has been

PROVISIONAL POPULATION TOTALS - MIZORAM 3 conducted in these areas and the system of making a distinction between Rural and Urban resulted to getting and utilizing the precise statistics in respect of Rural and Urban areas.

Rural Frame

In the ‘Rural Areas’, villages are classified into the following categories: 1. Revenue Village 2. Forest Village 3. Un-inhabited Village 4. Other Village (formed as a consequence of new settlements under various projects, etc.) In the case of Mizoram, only two types of villages can be found such as Revenue (inhabited) and Un-inhabited villages. Statement 1.2 Urban Agglomerations - 2011 The concept of urban agglomeration(UA) as adopted for the 1981, 1991 and 2001 Censuses will continue for the 2011 Census also. According to this, an urban agglomeration is a continuous urban spread constitution a town and its adjoining outgrowths(OGs), or two or more physically contiguous towns together with or without ourgrowths of such towns.

For the purpose of identification of urban agglomerations for 2011 Census, following criteria would be adopted. a) The core town or at least one of the constituent towns of an urban agglomeration should necessarily be a statutory town: and b) The total population of an urban agglomeration (i.e. all the constituents put together) should not be less than 20,000 as per the 2001 Census. In varying local conditions, there were similar other combinations which have been treated as urban agglomerations satisfying the basic condition of contiguity.

In Mizoram there is no Urban Agglomeration and Out Growths.

Urban Frame

In the ‘Urban Areas’, towns and cities are categorized in the following ways:

1. Municipal Corporation

2. Municipality

3. Nagar Panchayat

4. Cantonment Board

5. Census Towns According to the criteria given by the Government, the first four are statutory towns; meanwhile Census Town is not a statutory town and is declared as ‘Census Town’ only for a census concept where there is no Notified Town. However, the Government proposed to retain in Census 2011, the definition of an urban unit adopted in Census 2001 as follows:

4 (a) All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc.

(b) All other places which satisfied the following criteria:

(i) A minimum population of 5,000; (ii) At least 75 per cent of the male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and (iii) A density of population of at least 400 per sq. km.

As for Mizoram state, the capital city, is the only town having municipality, however, it is also categorized as Notified Town. Altogether there are 23 Notified Towns in the state and there is no Census Town. The number of Notified Towns increased by one as Lawngtlai has been categorized as Notified Town after 2001 Census. Statement 1.3 District-wise number of towns with civic status in Mizoram - 2011 No. of Name of Civic Towns in the District Status 2011 1 2 3 3 NT 4 NT Aizawl 4 NT Champhai 4 NT 3 NT 3 NT Lawngtlai 1 NT Saiha 1 NT

Mizoram has altogether 23 Notified Towns which are scattered into the 8 districts. Three Districts namely Aizawl, Champhai and Kolasib have 4 notified towns each. Mamit, Serchhip and have 3 towns each while Saiha and Lawngtlai District accommodate only one town each in their jurisdiction. Lawngtlai became a newly notified town during the decade 2001-2011.

GENERAL INTERPRETATION OF URBANIZATION

The term “Urbanization” became a popular one now a days, it signifies rapid growth of population in the urban areas due to economic factors, better facilities on education and health, and standard of living. In Mizoram, we can see that growth of population in urban areas is much higher than that of in the rural areas which is clearly depicted by the decadal growth rate, 27.43% in urban and 18.2% in rural. Urbanization also includes massive migration to urban areas from the rural areas due to the said factors. One example for urbanization in the state is that the capital city, Aizawl alone has a population of 291822 which is 26.75% of the total population of the state.

PROVISIONAL POPULATION TOTALS - MIZORAM 5 Statement 1.4 District-wise number of rural units in Mizoram - 2011 Name of the No. of villages in 2011 District Total Inhabited Un-inhabited 1 2 3 4 Mamit 123 86 37 Kolasib 49 34 15 Aizawl 104 94 10 Champhai 90 83 7 Serchhip 40 35 5 Lunglei 195 161 34 Lawngtlai 168 159 9 Saiha 61 52 9 MIZORAM 830 704 126

As stated earlier, there are 830 villages in the state. Out of these villages, 195 villages are located within Lunglei District which is 23.50% to the total number of villages in the state followed by Lawngtlai district with 168 villages (20.24%). has the lowest number of villages i.e. 40 (4.82% of the total number of villages).

Statement 1.5 Comparative composition of rural-urban population and percentage in and Mizoram - 2011 Mizoram India Population Male Female Population Male Female 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Rural 529037 271319 257718 833087662 427917052 405170610 Urban 561977 281020 280957 377105760 195807196 181298564 % Rural 48.49 49.12 47.84 68.84 68.61 69.09 % Urban 51.51 50.88 52.16 31.16 31.39 30.91

The Urban Population of the state is 51.51% to the total population and it is very high in comparison with the average urban population of India, i.e. 31.16%. Percentage of rural population in the state is 48.49 while India has 68.84% rural population. Urban population of the state is only 0.15% and rural population of the state is also only 0.06% of the urban and rural population of the nation respectively.

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