Two villages were surveyed in Punjab in 2011:

• Tehang, Jalandhar district
• Hakamwala, Mansa district

Tehang (Phillaur tehsil, Jalandhar district) is in the Doaba region of Punjab (that is, the land between the rivers Beas and Sutlej) and is about 5 km from the town of Phillaur. The village was surveyed twice by the Board of Economic Inquiry, Punjab, in 1931 and in 1962. Tehang is what was called a “refugee village.” Before Independence, about 80 percent of the households resident in the village were Muslim; by the survey of 1962, there was no Muslim family in the village.

In 2011, the main castes in the village were Jat Sikh; Ad-dharmi, Chamar, and Valmiki (all Scheduled Castes); Jheer (Mehra), Lohar, Tarkhan, Chhimbe, and Kamboj (all designated Other Backward Classes); and Brahmin, Baniya, and Sunar (Sunera).

In Tehang, all cultivated land was irrigated, mainly by electric tubewells, and also by canals. The main crops in the village were paddy (kharif) and wheat (rabi). In addition, fodder crops, pulses, oilseeds, and sugarcane were cultivated as subsidiary or minor crops.

Non-agricultural employment in construction and in factories in neighbouring towns and cities was the most important source of employment for landless households. As agriculture is highly mechanised, there is not much agricultural employment to be had in the village. The most labour-absorbent agricultural operation is paddy transplanting, a task performed by migrant workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere. Some migrant families from Bihar and Jharkhand have settled permanently in the village, but the big groups from these States come to the village in the paddy-transplanting season. Most of the attached or long-term workers in Tehang workers are also from Bihar and Jharkhand.

There has been substantial emigration from Tehang to North America and Europe, and many migrants have settled abroad permanently. Other workers have migrated to countries of the Persian Gulf and Africa.

In 1974, a separate residential area, Indira Nagar, was established by Government on nine acres of Government land in the village. People from the village acquired land here after houses were built in 1983; after the floods of 1988, they sold their houses to Dalit immigrants to the village. In 2009, Indira Nagar was made a separate panchayat.

At the time of the survey, there was no public transport to or from the village. Private auto-rickshaws were available, though private vehicles remained the main means of transport.

There were three senior secondary schools in the village and one government elementary school in the village.

Hakamwala (also spelt Hakimwala) is a village in Budhlada tehsil, Mansa district, in the Malwa region of Punjab (that is, in southern Punjab and to the east of the river Beas after its confluence with the Sutlej). Hakamwala is 14 km from Budhlada, and is at the border of Punjab and Haryana. Hakamwala was one of the 11 villages surveyed in 1972 by the Economic and Statistical Organisation, Government of Punjab, as part of a programme titled “Socio-Economic Survey of Eleven Selected Villages of Punjab.”

In 2011, the main castes in the village were Kumhar (Backward Class), Chamar (Scheduled Caste), and Jat Sikh.

The entire net sown area of the village was irrigated — though the quality of irrigation varied widely — by tubewells and canals. Canal water is mostly lifted with diesel pumps or tractors, because the level of water in field channels was below the level of the fields. The main crops cultivated in Hakamwala were cotton, paddy, and wheat. In addition, rapeseed, cluster beans, fodder crops, and vegetables were cultivated, almost entirely for household consumption. After the introduction of Bt cotton, yield levels of cotton have risen steeply.

Agriculture was characterised by high levels of mechanisation. Big landlords employ long-term attached workers for agricultural work. They are paid wages in cash or in the form of a share of the crop. In addition to agriculture, construction work, and brick kilns in neighbouring villages provided some employment to manual workers in the village.