నైరూప్య

Livelihood Pattern of Riverine Areas of Dibrugarh District and its Prospects of Livelihood Diversification

Sanjib Kumar Dutta

Diversification is a continuous adaptive process whereby household add new activities maintain existing one or drop others, thereby maintaining diverse and changinmake greater contribution to general livelihood portfolios. Livelihood in rural areas is very erratic and risk hidden. The land based livelihood of small and marginal farmers are becoming unsustainable in recent times due to surplus man power and decrease in availability of arable land. Diversification activities make greater contribution take strategy by which people try to improve the generate cash incomes for poor households and it is a key strategy by which people try to improve their wellbeing. The Barbaruah development block of Dibrugarh district is a chronically flood affected block. Six livelihood diversification strategies are identified i) farm only, ii) Off farm only, iii) non-farm only, iv) on farm plus off farm, v)off farm plus non-farm, vi) on farm plus off farm plus non-farm. As the entire survey area is inundated by flood water in every year, a part from farm activities various income generating activities carried out under livelihood diversification. Some households end upon multiple activities. A common pattern is for every poor and the comprehensive well-off households to have most diverse livelihood. Farm income accounts for 54.0 per cent of the total household income coming from off farm activities. It is also revealed that 44 per cent households prefer livelihood diversification due to limited agricultural income. About 22 per cent reported that the availability of non-farm activities encouraged them to adopt nonfarm activities. Managing livelihood has always been a critical factor or challenge among the poor in everywhere. Livelihood in the present scenario has become the keyword for the better living and prosperity.