An Insight to the Socio Economic Development around the Fringe Villages of Kaziranga National Park

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to see the pattern of overall development around the fringe villages of Kaziranga National Park, which is located in the Golaghat and Nagaon District of Assam. In recent years, there has been much hue and cry about the economic and social status of the people living in those fringe villages. Kaziranga National Park is one of the celebrated national parks in the world and has been facing the pressure of habitat and wild life destruction. But issues are not always environmental; rather there is a visible socio economic stress across the region. This confirms the problems faced by nearby settlements, which leads to their long stretched conflict with the wild life and heavy dependency. The heavy resource dependency by the local communities of the fringe villages on Kzairanga leads to the habitat degradation. On the other hand, the flood of mighty Brahmaputra River destroys the rural economy at a massive scale, leaving the local communities with narrow means of survival.

The study mainly by using primary data confirms that intensity of economic struggle in the fringe villages is very much strong. Daily survival becomes quite grim while facing challenges from habitat and flood. There has been effort provided by the government to strengthen the life and economic status of those people. Keeping eye on their success rate, thesis reaches the conclusion that the impacts of government policies are not as strong as it should have been.