A char village facing erosion and relocation
A char village in Barpeta district stands on a sandbar about 6 km long and 1.2 km wide. A household survey of 410 households (2,300 people) finds that 58% are landless, 70% depend on daily wage work and fishing, and 22% have at least one adult male who has migrated out. The school teaches up to Class VIII, and a health sub-centre is staffed twice a week. Bank erosion removed about 300 m from the western end in 2019 and another 150 m in 2022. The district offers relocation plots on the mainland 14 km away, but the site has no grazing land and few fishing opportunities. Several families say they will send one more adult away rather than move.
1. Classify the village by settlement type and explain the site factors that keep people on the char despite erosion.
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It is best described as a nucleated or compact char settlement: houses are grouped on the higher part of a riverine sandbar, with the school and sub-centre as central functions. The site is attractive because the char has fertile silt for paddy and vegetables, direct access to fishing and boat transport, and lower land values than the mainland. Many households are landless, so moving to a relocation site without grazing or fishing would remove their remaining livelihood. Social ties, familiarity with flood behaviour and the cost of rebuilding also keep them. The erosion risk is real but is concentrated at the western end, so the perceived danger may still seem less than the certain loss of livelihood on the mainland.
2. Is the out-migration mainly push or pull? Use the survey data.
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It is mainly push migration. The push factors are strong: 58% landlessness, 70% dependence on insecure daily wage work and fishing, erosion removing about 450 m in three years, schooling only to Class VIII and a health centre open twice a week. The pull factors are weak: the offered relocation site has no grazing and few fishing opportunities, and the people are not moving to a known urban job. The 22% of households with one adult male away is a diversification strategy under stress, not evidence of attractive destination conditions. Remittances may follow, but the initial movement is driven by the loss of security at home.
3. Design a relocation and adaptation package for the village and identify one equity concern.
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A workable package would combine protection and planned adaptation: (i) protect the remaining western end with toe revetment and bamboo planting; (ii) give written tenure on the safe part of the char so households can invest; (iii) relocate only households in the active erosion zone, in phases, to plots that include grazing and a fishing pond or access to a river ghat; (iv) improve the school and health outreach; (v) provide a ferry link to the mainland. The equity concern is that landless and female-headed households are least able to claim plots, pay construction costs or wait for compensation. Plots should be allotted in women’s names where possible, with transition cash and transport support, or the relocation will simply reproduce landlessness on the mainland.