Rural Housing Density and Occupancy Rate in Kolhapur District, Maharashtra

The study of rural houses is important in various ways. Rural dwellings can be studied by focusing their distribution, building material, general features, occupancy rate and available facilities and assets in which distribution of rural houses and occupancy rate are fundamental. The number of persons per household is simply called as occupancy rate. Present paper aims to endeavor distribution of rural housing, occupancy rate and factors affecting on them. The Kolhapur district of Maharashtra has selected as an area for the present investigation, based on Census of India’s Data. To study the distribution of houses simple density houses per sq.km and houses per village has been computed. The number of persons per household has been computed to known the occupancy rate. The density of rural houses is noted high in eastern three tahsils, medium in Kagal, Panhala and Gadhinglaj tahsils and low in remaining six tahsils. It is found that, the occupancy rate is high in highly populated and compacted villages and this occupancy rate in indirectly determined by physical factors.