To study the status of non-farm employment in the state and the factors affecting it, a survey was made during 2012-13 selecting two districts Bhagalpur and Kishanganj in Bihar. Selection of these two districts was made on the basis of higher and lower concentration of rural non- farm workers across the district. Thereafter, one town from each district (Naugachia from Bhagalpur and Kishanganj from Kishanganj district) was selected and on the basis of distance (3 & 10 kms away from the town) from the town, two cluster villages were selected from each town. A total of 120 households were formed the sampled size of the study. The study finds that the non-farm employment at village level and household level varied with the variation of village location and the villages nearer to the town have a significant concentration of non-farm employment as compared to the villages away from the town. It was also found that the higher pressure of engagement in the district was on rural non-farm employment i.e. in transport, storage and communication (20.0 % to 26.7%) whereas low concentration was observed in retail traders (16.7 % to 20.0%), private construction and marginal workers (16.7 % to 23.3%). Due to this the households were largely engaged in private construction, retail trade, transport, storage, etc. activities in the sampled area. The analysis showed that agricultural labourers and non-agricultural wage earners were engaged in greater diversification of economic activities as compared with the sampled industrial workers. The monthly income of salaried class workers found varied as per the categories of workers. The retail traders and transport activities workers get comparatively higher salary as compared to other categories of workers. Both the sampled districts had higher concentration of non-farm activities and most of the households were engaged in more than one economic activities for generating their income but in case of low concentration of rural non-farm employment, the diversification of activities were narrow and restricted to only one activity.

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