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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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Author: Parveen, Nikhat × End date: 2017 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    A Study on Ergonomic Evaluation of Rural and Urban Kitchen Design for Work Effectiveness
    (Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2017) Parveen, Nikhat; Kala, Shishir
    As per World Bank report 2014 the Indian female population comprised of 48.16 percent of total population of our country. Approximately 92 percent women works in their kitchen. The kitchen is the heart of the home because food has an important role to play in our lives. The Indian woman spends on an average 5-6 hours in their kitchen which may amount to approximately one fourth of her life span. The work area and environment of kitchen plays an important role in affecting the health of the housewife. Ergonomically designed kitchen make the work more comfortable and workers more efficient. On the other hand, ergonomic designed kitchen has become the need of the women as ergonomics contributes to the designing and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments and systems in order to make them compatible with the needs, abilities and limitations of the people. Use of ergonomic science in disposing of the day to day workload of housewife has been found important these days because there is an increased demand on the available resource of women who perform dual type of work both inside and outside of the home, she requires a lot of energy and time to complete work inside and outside the home with satisfaction and desired standards. The study was conducted in Muzaffarpur District of Bihar state. Muzaffarpur is one of the largest commercial and education centre in North Bihar. Muzaffarpur is an administrative District in the state of Bihar in India. The District occupies an area of 3,173 sq. km and it occupies both rural and urban area. From each selected rural and urban area 30 respondents were selected by random method and further information were gathered with the help of personal interview schedule. The main purpose of this research is to ergonomically evaluate the respondent’s kitchen design in both rural and urban area for work effectiveness. Keeping in view the objectives of the study, related information were gathered pertaining to socio-economic profile, anthropometric measurement of the respondent, physiological problem during performing kitchen activity, energy expenditure during various kitchen activity and remedies for ideal kitchen. For getting results of the study data were analyzed by   applying suitable formula and statistical method i.e. percentage, mean, median, standard deviation, coefficient of correlation, paired t-test and z-test were applied for getting accuracy of the results. The results of the study indicated that the socio-economic profile of respondents in rural and urban area was found different. The study reveals that in case of rural area a majority of the respondents (46.70%) were in age group of 18-30 years. Whereas in urban area the maximum respondents (43.30%) were in age group of 43-55 years. In rural areas fifty percent respondents had their medium family size (6-10) while in urban area majority of respondents (66.70%) had small family size (below 6). So far as family education of respondents in rural area is concerned a majority of respondents (46.70%) having low family education status (2.1-3.8) and in urban area a large majority of respondents (70%) had high education level (6.1-7.8). The results pertaining to the kitchen design in both rural and urban area indicated that in rural area a majority of respondents (40%) were using one wall kitchen and more than half of the respondents (53.30%) were using L-shaped kitchen. In case of rural area respondents (40%) had kitchen size 10x12 to 12x14 feet, while in urban area maximum respondents (50%) possessed their kitchen size below 6x8 feet. In case of rural area majority of respondents (66.60%) had adopted traditional kitchen design while in urban area majority of respondents (66.70%) had adopted modern kitchen design. In case of rural area ninety percent of respondents had open shelves for storage provisions while in urban area (66.70%) respondents had cupboards for storage of items in their kitchen. In rural area maximum number of respondents (80%) had their cooking counter height between 15- 45 cm and in urban area half of the respondents (50%) had their cooking counter height 15-45 cm. A majority of respondents (96.70%) had adopted sitting posture for cooking activity in rural area while a large majority of respondents (96.70%) had adopted standing posture for cooking activity in urban area. In case of rural area majority of respondents (63.30%) were non-vegetarian whereas (36.70%) respondents were found to be vegetarian. In case of urban maximum number of respondents (66.70%) were non vegetarian. The analysis of results related to anthropometric dimensions of respondents indicated that the mean height of rural women was 145.17 cm. whereas mean height of urban women was noted to be 151.87 cm. So far as the mean weight of rural women is concerned it was calculated to be 51.92 kg where as mean weight of urban women was 56.15 kg. In rural area mean value of Body Mass Index of respondents was 24.60 whereas in urban area respondents it was found 24.48. Results pertaining to energy expenditure of the respondents for performing kitchen activities highlighted that in rural area the highest energy required for grinding mashala on stone i.e. 4.887 with + 0.183 with SD value 1.007, while in urban area among all the selected activities energy expenditure was found to be highest for washing utensils and which was followed by the activity of preparation of dough i.e. 4.780 with std. error + 0.138 with SD value 0.757 and 4.666 with std. error + 0.145 with SD value 0.797 respectively and lowest mean value of energy expenditure for chapatti making was found to be 4.302 with std. error + 0.127 with SD value 0.697. The correlation coefficient of twenty four selected independent variables co-related with two dependent variables. In rural area results of kitchen design highlighted that five independent variables found to be significant i.e. the respondent’s education (-0.305)*, FES (-0.227)*, family occupation (-0.365)*, and type of house (-0.203)* came   to be negatively significant at 5% level of probability, whereas source of water (0.257)* was found to be positively significant at 5% level of probability. In urban area results shows that independent variable i.e. type of family (0.204)* found to be significant at 5% level whereas family income (-0.228)* and respondent income (-0.234)* were found to be negatively significant at 5% level of probability. The value of paired t-test related to anthropometric parameters of both the categories except for height (-4.451)** no significant difference was found in anthropometric parameters of groups under study and t-value of kitchen design and working posture was found to be highly significant at 1% level of probability i.e. (6.774**) and (3.730**) respectively. Further findings of the study revealed the remedies to improve kitchen design for work effectiveness in both the rural and urban area. The analysis of overall data results indicated that majority of respondents (98.30%) preferred to have closed and pacca kitchen followed by other changes i.e. liked to have standing type (modern) kitchen (68.30%). As far as storage facilities is concerned a large number of respondents (96.70%) expressed to have their shelves at appropriate and convenient height (15-45 cm). Besides majority of respondents (96.70%) reported to have proper lighting arrangement in their kitchen for performing various activities efficiently. Whereas maximum respondents (71.70%) were satisfied with the direction (East-West) of their kitchen and also majority of respondents (55%) liked the size of their kitchen i.e. 6x8 feet-8x10 feet. If these findings will be applied for construction of a kitchen, a homemaker can performed more works in less time with their minimum efforts as well as exertion. Now a days it has become a challenge for homemakers to accomplish household chores efficiently as they have to bear the duel burden of managing their home, carrier oriented outside works and also disbursing the responsibilities of participating in economic activities to boost up their family income. Hence, homemakers need to perform their household works especially the cooking related activities in an ergonomic designed kitchen, which will certainly reduces the physiological and temporal cost of homemakers, leading to increase their works productivity. In nut shell, it can be concluded that the women can perform all the kitchen activities efficiently in ergonomically designed kitchen which will increase her work effectiveness leading to more productive works. This will certainly spare the homemakers to disburse other important economic activities for the welfare of their family and there by contributing for our nation.