Haroa (community Development Block)

Haroa is a community development block that forms an administrative division in Basirhat subdivision of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal.

Geography

Haroa is located at .

Haroa CD Block is bounded by Deganga and Basirhat II CD Blocks in the north, Basirhat I and Minakhan CD Blocks in the east, Bhangar II CD Block in South 24 Parganas district in the south and Barasat II CD Block in the west.

Haroa CD Block is part of the North Bidyadhari Plain, one of the three physiographic regions in the district located in the lower Ganges Delta. The area is full of marshes and salt water lakes. The Bidyadhari has a long course through the central part of the district.

Haroa CD Block has an area of 152.73 km². It has 1 panchayat samity, 8 gram panchayats, 118 gram sansads (village councils), 90 mouzas and 90 inhabited villages. Haroa police station serves this block. Headquarters of this CD Block is at Haroa.

Gram panchayats of Haroa block/ panchayat samiti are: Bakjuri, Haroa, Shalipur, Gopalpur I, Khasbalanda, Sonapukur Sankarpur, Gopalpur II and Kulti.

Sundarbans

The Sundarbans is a flat lowland susceptible to tidal waves along the 260 km shoreline of the Bay of Bengal. The total expanse of Sundarbans is about 2.05 million hectares (8,000 square miles). Of this, only 0.42 million hectares (1,629 square miles or 10,43,000 acres) are under the reserve forests including about 0.19 million hectares covered by creeks and channels. The area is prone to natural calamities such as cyclones, thunderstorms with occasional hail and floods. There are more than 63,400 km of embankments but the floods caused by high tidal bores, often wash away much of the embankments, already weakened and broken by earlier cyclonic storms.

In May 2009, the district was hit by high speed cyclone named '' Aila'' and subsequent rainfall which continued for two days. This created a disaster in 20 out of 22 blocks of the district. 10 out of 27 municipalities of the district were also severely affected.

Six CD Blocks of North 24 Parganas are included in the Sundabans area – Hingalganj, Hasnabad, Sandeskhali I and II, Minakhan and Haora. The south-eastern part of the district gradually merges into the Sunderbans.

Demographics

Population

As per 2011 Census of India Haroa CD Block had a total population of 214,401, all of which were rural. There were 111,080 (52%) males and 103,321 (48%) females. Population below 6 years was 27,504. Scheduled Castes numbered 50,636 (23.62%)and Scheduled Tribes numbered 12,728 (5.94%).

As per 2001 census, Haroa block has a total population of 182,499 out of which 94,205 were males and 88,294 were females.

Large villages in Haroa CD Block (2011 census figures in brackets): Haripur (6,315), Kharupala (6,003), Mazampur (5,556), Shankarpur (4,364), Kamarganti (9,555), Laugachhi (4,540), Ranigachhi (5,947), Khas Balandar (9,046), Atghara (5,096), Kalikapur (4,378), Gobaria Abad (4,468), Dhantala (4,567), Gopalpur (10,864) and Jampur (4,863).

North 24 Parganas district is densely populated, mainly because of the influx of refugees from East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). With a density of population of 2,182 per km² in 1971, it was 3rd in terms of density per km² in West Bengal after Kolkata and Howrah, and 20th in India. According to the District Human Development Report: North 24 Parganas, “High density is also explained partly by the rapid growth of urbanization in the district. In 1991, the percentage of urban population in the district has been 51.23.”

Decadal Population Growth Rate (%)

The decadal growth of population in Haroa CD Block in 2001-2011 was 17.47%. The decadal growth of population in Haroa CD Block in 1991-2001 was 20.80%.

The decadal growth rate of population in North 24 Parganas district was as follows: 47.9% in 1951-61, 34.5% in 1961-71, 31.4% in 1971-81, 31.7% in 1981-91, 22.7% in 1991-2001 and 12.0% in 2001-11. The decadal growth rate for West Bengal in 2001-11 was 13.93%. The decadal growth rate for West Bengal was 17.84% in 1991-2001, 24.73% in 1981-1991 and 23.17% in 1971-1981.

Only a small portion of the border with Bangladesh has been fenced and it is popularly referred to as a porous border. It is freely used by Bangladeshi infiltrators, terrorists, smugglers, criminals et al.

Literacy

As per the 2011 census, the total number of literates in Haroa CD Block was 136,679 (73.13% of the population over 6 years) out of which males numbered 75,747 (78.13% of the male population over 6 years) and females numbered 60,932 (67.75% of the female population over 6 years). The gender disparity (the difference between female and male literacy rates) was 10.38%.

See also – List of West Bengal districts ranked by literacy rate

Language and religion

As per census definition, mother-tongue is the language spoken in childhood by the person’s mother to the person. As a mother-tongue, Bengali has decreased its share from 91.3% of the population of North Twenty Four Parganas district in 1961 to 87.9% in 2001, Hindi has increased its share from 5.0% in 1961 to 8.3% in 2001, Urdu