A study of demographic structure and fertility among the Bhotia tribe of Uttaranchal.

Keeping these facts in mind it becomes imperative to analyze the pattern of population change at the micro level. As a paradigm shift in population policy for India the Swaminathan Committee (1994) recommended that for execution we must think plan and act locally (micro level) and this must be supported nationally through a broader plan of action (macrolevel). Later the Government of India accepted this suggestion when it announced the National Population Policy-2000. This applied to the states as well as to various communities including tribes. The Policy therefore devoted a special section to tribal communities while acknowledging the need to focus at micro level to solicit cooperation of every section of the society for bringing down the overall population growth trend. It argues that"... Population in remote and low-density areas does not have adequate access to affordable health care services. Tribal populations often have high levels of morbidity... They remain under-served in the coverage of reproductive and child health services". Srinivasan (2000) has also suggested that in a changing demographic and developmental scenario empirical analysis of the prevailing scenario at local level is indispensable. Keeping these facts in mind a study on the Bhotia an important Scheduled Tribe (S.T.) of Uttaranchal state has been undertaken. The specific objective of the study is to analyze the demographic features of the Bhotia tribe besides studying pattern of fertility and prevalence and scope for modern methods of birth control. Therefore it can be underlined here that the trend obtained would be applicable to the villages and districts which are geographically located in the close vicinity of the sample villages and district Chamoli. This can be argued on the basis of findings of Guilmoto and Rajan (2002). They have concluded that spatial correlation coefficients between fertility and other parameters are very high for short distances. But the coefficients tend to get weaker if distances are increased gradually. While undertaking this study it was kept in mind that it would help in generalizing the findings to other tribal groups in the nearby areas of the state and presumably Bhotia residing in other areas (districts). The study covered Bhotia households in ten selected villages. These villages were from three development blocks of Chamoli district in the State of Uttaranchal. The district of Chamoli is located in the northern part of Uttaranchal. The state of Uttaranchal was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in November 2000 and was conferred special status on May 2 2001 by the Parliament of India due to its strategic location that touched the international borders of Tibet/China in the North and Nepal in the East. (excerpt)