India - Economic Activities of the Tribals: NSS 44th Round, Schedule 29.2, July 1988 - June 1989

The sample design is stratified two-stage with the census village as the first stage unit in the rural sector and UFS block as the first stage unit in the urban sector. The second stage units are households.

The sample design in the rural sector has been decided with a view to providing good estimates for the tribal enquiry. Except in the north-eastern region, the tribal population is concentrated in some districts within the states having considerable tribal population and even in those districts they are found to be unevenly distributed geographically. Therefore special stratification and selection procedures have been adopted not only to net sufficient number of tribal households in the sample but also to improve the design in general for the tribal enquiry.

While the rural design is oriented towards the tribal enquiry, the urban design is oriented towards the enquiry on construction. As building construction activity is found to be concentrated in some areas in the urban sector, attempts have been made in urban design to demarcate such areas in larger towns as separate strata. Detailed description of the rural and urban sample designs are as follows:

SAMPLE DESIGN : RURAL

Sampling frame of villages:
The list of 1981 census villages constitute the sampling frame for selection of villages in most districts. However in Assam (where '81 census was not done) and a few districts of some other states (where the available lists of villages were not satisfactory), 1971 census village lists have been used as frame.

Stratification :
In Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, Goa, Daman & Diu and Pondicherry where there are practically no tribal population, the strata used in NSS 43rd round were retained. In Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Lakshadweep also the strata of 43rd round were retained because of the high percentage of ST population in these States/U.T.'s. (The strata of 43rd round have been retained in the case of Sikkim as the distribution of tribal population is more or less uniform over all the districts). In the remaining states fresh stratification was carried out as described below.

In these states all districts accounting for the bulk of the state's tribal population were selected for formation of strata with concentration of tribal population. Besides these districts, tribal concentration strata have been demarcated also in some other districts with relatively small tribal population in order to ensure coverage of as many different ethnic groups as possible.

Within each district so identified for formation of tribal concentration strata, the tehsils with relatively high concentration of tribal population, together constituted one stratum. These tehsils were selected in such a way that together they accounted for the bulk (70% or more) of the district tribal population and the proportion of tribal to total population in this stratum was significantly greater than that of the district as a whole. The strata so formed were not always geographically contiguous. These tribal concentration strata are called STRATUM TYPE -1. Further, all the strata of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep and Sikkim are also considered as stratum type-1. All the remaining strata in the rural sector (in any State/U.T.) are called stratum type -2.

There was no deviation from the original sampling design.