Socio-economic feasibility of some of the villages of Chamoli district of Garhwal Himalayas

The socio-economic status of eight villages with a total of 521 households surveyed during the study, including 2820 members in different groups and community. The average family size was reported to be 5.41 members per family. During the survey of villages, it was found that the adult literacy rate in male was 51.19 per cent as comparison to female literacy rate 48.80 per cent, respectively. In the livestock of the eight villages the various categories of livestock the buffaloes were the maximum 57.82 per cent followed by sheep/goat 26.30 per cent. The average daily fuel wood consumption during summer and winter in different villages varied from 83.41 kg/day/village to 535.40 kg/day/village in summer and 150.70 kg/day/village to 757.05 kg/day/village in winter which are supplemented by existing agroforestry upto considerable extent. The utilization of fodder tree varied from 301.05 kg/day/village to 1009.15 kg/day/village in the summer and 650.50 kg/day/village to 2011.50 kg/day/village in the winter season which is also supplemented by traditional agroforestry trees in a sizeable limit. The land holding size ranged from 0.03 to 5.6 ha per family with 77.9 per cent families under marginal category, 19.05 per cent under small category and -3.04 per cent families comprised of mediumlarge landholding size.