Bengali Report - Bengalee Association Bihar

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health status of the Bengali population is probably inferior to that of the general population. It is quite possible that the urban population enjoys a relatively better health status vis-à-vis their rural counterparts, both for the Bengali and general population. At least among the Bengali urban population in Bhagalpur, the percentage of population above 66 years was substantially higher at 9.2 percent. Literacy Status In spite of the fact that a major portion of the sample households in the present survey is from rural areas where the literacy rates are usually lower, it is interesting to note that the recorded literacy rate for the surveyed Bengali population was 71.9 percent, a clear 8.1 percentage point more than the literacy rate for the general population in Bihar (63.8 percent), as per 2011 census (Table 2). There were only two districts where the literacy rate of the Bengali population was found to be low — West Champaran (56.9 percent) and East Champaran (55.9 percent). As mentioned before, Bengali population residing in these two districts are generally refugees and they are indeed socially disadvantaged in many respects. It is also interesting to know that the literacy rate for the urban Bengalis is very high (93.8 percent), as observed for the sample households in Bhagalpur. Apart from recording a higher literacy rate, the gender disparity in literacy rate is also noticeably lower among the Bengali population than among the general population in Bihar (Table 2). Among the Bengalis, the female literacy rate (66.2 percent) is 84 percent of the male literacy rate (78.8 percent); however, among the general population, the female literacy rate (53.3 percent) is only 73 percent of the male literacy rate (73.4 percent). This lower gender disparity with respect to literacy rate is observed in all the districts, particularly in Bhagalpur where the two gender- specific literacy rates are nearly equal (93.7 and 93.9 percent, for females and males respectively). Since a person is generally defined to be literate using a very liberal criterion in most socio-economic surveys in India (including the present survey), the literacy 9
ate of a population is often an insufficient indicator of its educational status. For a comprehensive idea of about the educational status of a population, one should really consider the distribution of the population in various categories of educational levels and Table 3 presents such a distribution for the Bengali population of Bihar. It is immediately observed there that a large percentage of the literate Bengalis have only marginal educational achievements, i.e., below matriculation. One cannot expect such people to derive much advantage of education through either skill formation, or wider income opportunities, or higher levels of awareness on social issues. Among the Bengali population, only 16.2 percent of the persons are seen to have passed matriculation or any other higher examinations. This is indeed a low figure, pointing to the educational disadvantaged of the Bengalis, in spite of bare literacy skills that many of them posess. As before, the educational status is the worst for the Bengali population in West Champaran and East Champaran, followed by the two north-eastern districts of Purnea and Katihar; the educational status is, of course, the best in Bhagalpur since it represents the urban Bengali population. Table 3 : Percentage Distribution of Persons (Above 6 Years) by Education Status Districts Illiterate Just Literate Percentage of Persons Literate, but below Matric 10 Matric, but below Graduation Graduate and above Total Purnea 18.5 43.4 18.3 14.4 5.5 100.0 Katihar 15.3 46.6 15.6 17.6 5.0 100.0 West Champaran 35.3 31.0 23.8 8.7 1.1 100.0 East Champaran 36.8 28.4 23.6 9.5 1.6 100.0 Bhagalpur 3.3 12.4 8.2 31.6 44.4 100.0 All Districts 28.1 34.2 21.0 12.0 4.2 100.0 As a supplementary information on the educational status of Bengali population in Bihar, Table 4 presents the percentage distribution of households by the highest
Page 2 and 3: CONTENTS ii Page No. List of Tables
Page 4 and 5: SECTION I INTRODUCTION The history
Page 6 and 7: programmes, it is now often necessa
Page 8 and 9: SECTION II SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITION
Page 10 and 11: Districts Table 2 : Demographic Pro
Page 14 and 15: level of education of any of its me
Page 16 and 17: the adult population, and occupatio
Page 18 and 19: Bengalis was found to be the highes
Page 20 and 21: than 3 percent) and so is their ten
Page 22 and 23: The most substantive welfare progra
Page 24 and 25: Table 12 : Percentage of Bengali Ho
Page 26 and 27: As regards type of roof material, a
Page 28 and 29: most areas of Bihar, including some
Page 30 and 31: SECTION III BENGALI REFUGEES FROM E
Page 32 and 33: continued for some years after 1960
Page 34 and 35: overall sample, it is observed that
Page 36 and 37: Finally, the present survey had tri
Page 38 and 39: This official report, at one hand,
Page 40 and 41: same, viz., creation of an informat
Page 42: y the local officials. More than 90

Bengali Report - Bengalee Association Bihar

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