An Assessment of Quality of Life of Scheduled Tribes (St) in The Nilgiris District with Specific Reference to Todas
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Date
2014
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Abstract
The concept of quality o f life broadly encompasses how an individual measures the ‘goodness’ o f multiple
aspects o f their life. At all levels of development, the three essential choices for people are, to live a long
and healthy life, to acquire better knowledge and to have access to resources needed for a decent standard
of living. The quality o f life of Scheduled tribes is unique since they were the socially excluded population.
India had the largest tribal population in the World and Indian tribes constituted roughly 8.6 percent of the
nation’s total population. In this context a research study on “An assessment of quality of life of
scheduled tribes in Nilgiri district with specific refers to Todas” was formulated with the objectives of
estimating quality of life of Todas in Nilgiris District and to identify factors influencing quality of life of
Todas in Nilgiris District. The required information was collected from 50 Todas households in Nanjanadu
village in Udhagamandalam block. The study tried to assess quality of life of the selected tribal households
by using the parameters of housing (type and number of rooms), source of water used, sanitation facilities
available, food and nutrition intake, health status, educational status, fuel and energy availability, assets
possessed, own transportation and per capita income. The study used chi-square analysis. As per the study
majority of the head of the household (36.00 percent) belonged to the age group of 41-50 years. Majority
of head o f the households (34.00 pereent) were illiterate and (28.00 percent) eompleted secondary
education. The primary occupation of head of the Todas households was business since 48.00 present were
involved in business. On an average head of the Todas households earn monthly income of Rs.7521. There
was predominance o f joint family system for the Todas tribal sinee majority of them were belonging to
joint family. Majority of them(44.00 percent) represents large sized category. There was dominance of
Hindu religion as indicated by the fact that 76.00 percent of Todas were Hindus. Majority of Todas
household (54 percent) were living in Kacha house having rooms in the range of 5-6 and 42 percent had
own tap. All the selected Todas household have used gas and electricity as fuel and had own toilet
facilities. Among Todas 52 percent had good food intake consisting of rice, pulses, curry. Of the total
Todas household 30 percent had fair quality o f life and 48 percent had good quality of life. On an average
the estimated quality o f life was found to be 39.46 to improve the quality of life o f Todas the study
recommended that there is need for increasing the access of education facilities to all Todas by establishing
schools in the nearby areas of Toda Munds and income generation programmes targeting women have to
be encouraged.