Human development report on Kottayam to be ready soon

The District Human Development Report (DHDR) for Kottayam will be
ready soon. Speaking at consultative workshop organised to discuss the
draft report, K. Narayanan Nair, Director, Centre for Development
Studies, who has been entrusted with the preparation of the DHDR by
the Kerala State Planning Board, said the report aims at understanding
the human development indices of the district in comparison with the
rest of the State, and to highlight the variations across the
sub-regions and socio-economic groups within the district. The draft
report has been organised in nine chapters. One of the findings is
that the proportion of aged people in Kottayam is higher than the
State average. The proportion of 60-plus population is 12.9 per cent
in comparison to the State average of 10.6 per cent. The proportion of
the 0-14 age group is 23.3 per cent. Sex ratio which is favourable to
female, however, shows a different picture when disaggregated. In the
0-9 age group and 10-14 age group males significantly outnumbered
females. The report has drawn a negative relationship between literacy
rate and work participation rate (WPR) among women. Compared to the
figures for the State, less gender discrepancy exists in the level of
effective literacy rate, the report noted and pointed out that this
high literacy rate was not reflected in the work participation. In
fact, in development blocks with a high female literacy rate, female
WPR was found to be less. The chapter on development and disparity
brings out the inequalities in development across the sub regions.
Vaikom taluk comes out as relatively low in prosperity. The taluk tops
the list with residential houses without electricity. In Vaikom block,
26 per cent of the houses do not have power connection. Another
startling finding is that except in two blocks and one municipality,
average number of students per government school was less than 100.
However, wherever teachers had taken the initiative they could
increase the number. The cost of schooling in unaided schools is eight
times the average cost of schooling in government-funded schools.
According to the report, one-fifth of the households live below the
threshold level of poverty. The discussions on Friday highlighted the
shortcomings of the report in shedding more light on plantation
sector, landownership, food security and issue of forex remittance.
However, one of the major bottlenecks highlighted during the
discussions was the reliability of the data.
The Hindu, July 4