Flood persuade livelihood: evidences based on selected districts in West Bengal Hazra Sumantra, Sarkar Debashis* Department of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan-731236, Birbhum, West Bengal, India *Address for correspondence: Sumantra Hazra: Department of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan-731236, Birbhum, West Bengal, India. E-mail: debashis.sarkar@visva-bharati.ac.in
Online published on 24 June, 2016. Abstract Preparing a inclusive policy to begin suitable changes in the working silhouette of the flood affected people in a vulnerable area seems to represent the major challenges of flood risk management. An effort has been made in this paper to examine the earnings under different livelihoods patterns of the flood prone area over three divergent sub-periods of floods. The study points out to the urgent need for livelihood enhancement in the study area. This is because of the fact that the overall current endowment of the factors of productions, distribution of productive assets and productive abilities are grossly out of alignment with what is needed in a flood prone area. The local rural economy is not in a position to automatically generate livelihoods for all those who seek it. Thus it is reasonable to infer that there exists a vast pool of surplus labour within the study area. The problem therefore is to mobilize sufficient investable capital through third party intervention to utilize the available surplus labour force in productive ventures. Top Keywords Flood, livelihood pattern, diversification of livelihood, income. Top |