PRG.2.71 (W. Bengal) (N) 5(lC CENSUS OF INDIA 1971 SERIES 22 WEST BENGAL Part IV HOUSING REPORT AND TABLES BHASKAR GHOSE of the Indian Administrative Service Director of Census Operations, West Bengal PRINTED IN INDIA BY THE ART eNGRAVERS, 28, GARCHA 1ST LANE, CALCUTTA-19 AND PUBLISHED BY THE MANAGER OF PUBLICATIONS, CIVIL LINES, DELHI-S, 1972 Price: Rs. 5.50 paise or £ 0.64 or 1 $ 98 cents. 1971 CENSUS PUBLICATIONS GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PUBLICATIONS Series 22-West Bengal Part I-A GENERAL REPORT Part I-B GENERAL REPORT Part I-C SUBSIDIARY TABLES Part II-A GENERAL POPULATION TABLES Part II-B(i) ECONOMIC TABLES Part II-B(ii) ECONOMIC TABLES Part II-C(i) POPULATION BY MOTHER TONGUES, RELIGIONS, SCHEDULED CASTES AND SCHEDULED TRIBES Part II-CCii) SOCIAL AND CULTURAL TABLES AND FERTILITY TABLES Part- II-D MIGRATION TABLES Part III-A ESThBLISHMENTS TABLES Part III-B REPORT AND SUBSIDIARY TABLES ON ESTABLISHMENT Part IV HOUSING REPORT AND TABLES THE PRESENT VOLUME Pari VI-A TOWN DIRECTORY Part VI-B(i-xv) SPECIAL SURVEY REPORTS ON SELECTED TOWNS Part VI-C(i-iii) SURVEY REPORTS ON SELECTED VILLAGES Part VIII -A ADMINISTRATION REPORT ON ENUMERATION PUBLISHED Part VIII-B ADMINISTRATION REPORT, ON TABULATION Part IX CENSUS ATLAS Part IX-A ADMINISTRATIVE CENSUS ATLAS Part XI (i-v) SPECIAL MONOGRAPHS GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGAL PUBLICATIONS 32 Volumes of District Census Handbooks Each Districts containing two Parts i. e., Part A & B and Part C Preface THE PRESENTATION of the Repqrt on Housing and the Tables for West Bengal marks the culmination of what has now become the first of the major decennial census.. opera- tions, houselisting and housenumbering. In West Bengal, the operations were conducted at a difficult time; a combination.. of several factors imposed on the district administration all over the State such stresses that what should have been a fairly routine affair became, in places, an ordeal which sorely tried. the patience and the organisational ability of the officers and staff. The survey was, nevertheless, completed and this volume contains the results. In the report, an attE1mpt has been made to identify the main trends in the State. This is, inevi­ tably, bound to be very general; the tables provide a wealth of information from which a perceptive reader will find much of value and significance that I may .h~ve missed. I would like to place on record my gratitude to the Registrar General and ex-officio Census Commissioner for India, Shri A. Chandra Sekhar for his constant guidance, especially when things looked so bad that the prospect of having to catl off the operations frequently became very real, and for encouraging us to' look at the data and discover for ourselves the trends and conditions they reflected. My sincere thanks are due to Shri_ K. D. Ballal, Deputy Registrar General, India, and Shri K. K. Chakravarty, Central Tabulation Of·ncer; they not only put up with my all too often extraordinary requests ~nd problems but s~owed me a degree of sympathy which made the work much easier. I also owe a good deal to Shri S. C. Sharma, Assistant Registrar General (Data Processing), and Shri S. Raghavachari, Assistant Registrar General (Demography & Train­ ing) and their colleagues. Shri A. Sengupta, Mechanical Tabu­ lation Officer not only completed his own part of the work with great despatch but spent a considerable amount of time and care to ensure that I got my tables as quickly as possible: I wish to place on record my thanks to him for this invaluable help. I would also like to place on record my deep sense of appreciation of the work done by Shri Amiya Kumar Ghosh, Sr. Tech,nical Assistant and Shri Subhendu Das Sarma, Com­ putor, who prepared the statements which appear in this Report with dexterity, notwithstanding the fact that my demands were fairly exacting; to Shri Kalyan Datta, Shri Bechuram Datta, Shri Udayan Rakshit, Sm. Shila Chatterjee, Sm. Sunity Sharma and Sm. Shikha Mukherjee for typing the manuscript and to Shri R. C. Bhar, Sr. Technical Assistant and Shri Apurba Sen Gupta, Computor and Shri Himangshu Saha Choudhury, Proof Reader for seeing the report through the Press. I would also like to acknowledge with thanks the hard work done by the team of officials headed by Shri S. Mitra, Deputy Director of Census Operations who prepared the Subsidiary Tables with commendable speed and accuracy. ,BHASKAR GHOSE Director of Census Operations, Calcutta, February 8, 1972 West Bengal iv CONTENTS Pages PREFACE iii-iv REPORT 1-63 I Chapter: Introductory 3-12 Permanent Housenumbering 4; Concepts 6; The Conduct of the Operations 10. II Chapter : Uses to which Census Houses are put 13-29 Vacant Census Houses 21; Distribution pattern in Cities 23 ; Comparison with 1960 data 27. Statements : Percentagewise distribution of non-residential and partly residential houses 14 & 16 2 Percentagewise distribution of Workshops-cum-residence and Factories, Workshops and Worksheds 18 3 Number and percentagewise distribution of Vacant Census Houses for the State 20 4 Percentagewise' distribution of Vacant Census Houses 20 5 Percentagewise distribution of non-residential and partly residential houses in Cities 22 6 Percentagewise distribution of Workshops-cum-residence and Factories, Workshops and Worksheds in Cities 24 7 Percentagewise distribution of Vacant-Census Houses to Total Census Houses in Cities 24 8 Percentage of Workshops-cum-Dwellings; Shops'excluding eating houses; Factories, Workshops and Worksheds; to Total No. of non-residential and partly residential Census Houses 1960 and 1970 26 III Chapter: Materials of Wall and Roof of houses 31-41 Material of walls 31; Rural-Urban differential 33; Material of roof 33 ; The data on houses as a whole-Appendix to Table U-II 37. Pages S1atements : 1 Percentage of Census Houses a~cording to Material of Wall for the State 30 2 Percentage of Census Houses by Material of Wall 1970 32 3 Percentage' of Census Houses by Material of Wall in Cities, 1970 34 4 Percentage of Census Houses by Material of Roof 1970 36 5 Percentage of Census Houses according to Material of Roof in Cities 38 IV Chapter: Households and the number of rooms occupied 43-53 Statements: 1 Percentage of households by number of rooms occupied, 1970 44 2 Percentage of households by number of rooms occupied, 1960 46 3 Percentage of households by number of rooms occupied in Cities, 1970 48 4 Percentage of persons per room in West Bengal and its Districts, 1970 50 5 Percentage of persons per room in tpe Cities, 1970 50 6 Percent-age of persons per room 1960 52 V Chapter: Tenure Status 55-63 Statements: 1 Percentage of Census Households in Owned and Rented Houses to total number of Census Households, 1970 54 2 Percentage of Owned and Rented Census Households hiring in Owned and Rented Houses to total number of Census House- holds of the State and its Districts,, 1960 56 3 Percentage of Census Households hiring in Cities Ownel and Rented Houses, 1970 I 58 4 Percentage distribution of Households living in Owried Houses by number of Members 58 5 Percentage of Households in Rented Houses by number of Persons 60 6 Percentage of Households in Rented Houses by number of persons in Cities 62 7 Percentage of Rented Houses to total Rented Houses by member of persons 62 VI Pages TABLES I Census Houses and the uses to which they are put 68 II Distribution of Census Houses by predominant material of wall and predominant material of roof 74 Appendix to Table H-II Distribution of Residential Census Houses by material of wall cross-classified by material of roof 78 III Households classified by number of members and by number of rooms occupied 80 IV Households classified by size and Tenure Status 90 SUBSIDIARY TABLES I.l Distribution of 1000 Census Houses by vacant and different types of occupied Census Houses 94 1.2 Distribution of 1000 Census Houses for selected types of use among rural and urban areas 96 ILl Distribution of 1000 Census Houses by predominant material of wall in Rural and Urban areas separately 97 II.l(A) Distribution of 1000 residential Census Houses by predo- minant material bf wall in Rural and Urban areas separately 98 11.2 Distribution of 1000 Census Houses by predominant material of roof in Rural and Urban areas separately 99 IL2(B) Distribution of 1000 residential Census Houses by predo- minant material of roof in Rural and Urban areas separately 100 IILl Distribution of 1000 Census Households by number of rooms occupied 101 IIL2 Number of persons Males and Females per room and persons per household 102 IV.1 Distribution of 1000 Census Households living in Census Houses according to size of the households in Rural and Urban areas separately 106 APPENDIX ( i ) Instructions to Enumerators for filling up the Houselist 111 ( ii) Circulars and Important letters on Houselisting 127 vii Pages ( iii) Form of Houselist/Houselist Abstract/Summary of Houselist 142 ( iv) Edit instructions for the scrutiny of the Houselists 146 ( v) Sample Design and Precision of Estimates 152 MAPS AND DIAGRAMS 1 Non-residential use of Census Houses in each district 108-109 2 Percentage of Census Houses by material of Wall and Roof 108-109 3 Households by number of Rooms occupied )971 108-109 4 Shift in Tenure Status with household size in 1971 108-109 viii REPORT I IntroductQry It has now been generally accepted that census data, as a term, includes data on houses, although the operations are mainly concerned with the popula­ tion. This can be said to be an organic and in some ways .a logical, extension of the dimensions of the census.