Occupational Hazards Faced by the Agricultural Hill Population

Abstract

Hill terrains have always posed enormous challenges for human habitation. India, being a vast subcontinent, has an extensive area of hilly terrain. This paper highlights the challenges faced and the need of improving the occupational safety of hill population. For the present investigation data was collected purposively from Bageshwar and Almora districts of the Uttarakhand state in India. t was reported that hill women performed various tasks including on farm activities like harvesting, weeding, land preparation, transplanting, sowing. The main off farm activities performed by them include making firewood, making fodder, carrying firewood, carrying fodder, carrying milk/food. The domestic activities performed by them include cooking, washing, mopping, milking, collecting dung. It was found that almost 96 per cent of these tasks were found to be performed by women only while men did just the 4 per cent of these tasks. While performing these tasks the hazards reported by the respondents were attack of wild animal, slip/trip/falls, fog, flood, temperature extremities, torrential rain, earthquake, thunderstorm, snowfall, landslide, road accidents, and forest fire.