Correlates of impact of pumpset supply scheme on tribal farmers

Abstract

Agriculture is the main base of Indian economy. The agriculture development is depend on development of all sectors of farming community may be poor or rich, educated or illiterate, tribal or non-tribal. As tribal villages are located in the forest and hills, they remain more or less cut off from the main stream of national development. Extension education is equally important in tribal communities as it is in the rural communities. It has widely been accepted by the Government that the tribal people must be brought the main stream of Indian life. The tribals are exploited through and alienation, indebtedness, bounded labour, malpractices in exchange of agricultural and forest produce, etc. To overcome in this developmental programme priority was given to agriculture and allied sectors, irrigation facilities and forest and mineral based industries. Efforts were also made to include a change in the traditional ways of agriculture. So as to provide increased income to the tribal cultivators even though they have small holdings. At national and state level various agriculture development schemes are implemented with a view to bring the development in tribal farming. Tribal beneficiaries of pumpset supply scheme largely belonged to middle age group i.e. 36 to 51 year (51.33 %), illiterate (26.00 %), belonged to farming community. Majority of them i.e. 83.33 per cent doing subsidiary occupation as farm labour, had medium 1.01 to 2 ha hand holding (46.67 %), had medium socio-economic status (40.00 %), 66.67 per cent tribal beneficiaries had utilized the medium level information sources, had medium degree of proneness to change (56.67 %), had low extension contact (86.67 %) and majority tribals had moderately favourable attitude towards scheme (48.00 %).