Census type surveys were conducted in three villages in West Bengal in May-June 2010.

• Panahar, Bankura district
• Amarsinghi, Malda district
• Kalmandasguri, Koch Bihar (Cooch Behar) district

In 2015, sample surveys were conducted in the three villages; the sample size was 108 in Panahar, 55 in Amarsinghi, and 52 households in Kalmandasguri. The results from the surveys of the three villages have been published as Socio-Economic Surveys in Three Villages in West Bengal: A Study of Agrarian Relations, edited by Aparajita Bakshi and Tapas Singh Modak.

Some research articles that used data from these surveys are:

1. Basu, Ranjini (2015), “Land Tenures in Cooch Behar District, West Bengal: A Study of Kalmandasguri Village,” Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1. view article
2. Modak, Tapas Singh, and Bakshi, Aparajita (2017), “Changes in Groundwater Markets: A Case Study of Amarsinghi Village, 2005 to 2015,” Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2. view article
3. Sarkar, Biplab (2017), “Household Crop Incomes Among Small Farmers: A Study of Three Villages in West Bengal,” Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2. view article
4. Usami, Yoshifumi, Patra, Subhajit, and Kapoor, Abhinav (2018), “Measuring Female Work Participation in Rural India: What do the Primary and Secondary Data Show?,” Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2. view article

Panahar (Deshra-Koalpara Gram Panchayat, Kotulpur block, Bankura district) falls in the Old Vindhyan Alluvial region of West Bengal. The village is 3 km from Kotulpur on the road that connects Kotulpur to Joyrambati and Arambagh. The boundaries of the village habitation are contiguous with the village habitations of two other villages, Koalpara and Palpuskarini. At the time of the 2010 survey, the nearest market, high school, and Primary Health Centre were located in Koalpara. There were a few shops and a primary school in Panahar. Panahar is well-connected by road, as buses connecting Kotulpur, Bishnupur, and Bankura to Kolkata pass through the village.

Households in Panahar belonged to various castes and social groups, including Goala, Baishnab, Modak, Chasi-Kaibarta, Tanti and Kumbhakar (officially designated Backward Classes), Bagdi, Majhi, Kotal and Teli (all Scheduled Castes), Santhal (Scheduled Tribe), Brahman, Baishnab and Sadgop, and Muslim households.

Panahar has been surveyed five times since 1995. Household-level data from the survey of 2005 is also a part of the FAS archive. At the time of the PARI survey in June 2010, a total of 250 households lived in Panahar.

Agricultural land in Panahar was primarily irrigated by tubewells. Although the village is in the command area of the Kangsabati project, very little irrigation was received from it. The area covered by ponds and a river lift irrigation scheme, important sources of irrigation in 1995-96, had declined steeply by 2010.

In earlier studies on Panahar, the period between 1977-78 and 1995-96 was characterised as a period of high agricultural growth. Agricultural transformation in Panahar over this period was led by public interventions in the form of land reforms, the establishment of institutions of local government and the provision of electricity for agriculture. Interventions by government in agricultural production and marketing also played an important role in the development of agriculture.

In Panahar, in 2010 land irrigated by electrified tubewells was triple-cropped. The major crops were an aman (kharif) crop of paddy, a winter crop of potato, and summer crops of boro paddy or sesame. In 2010, mustard, rapeseed, and wheat were also cultivated on a small scale.

Amarsinghi is situated in Samsi gram panchayat, Ratua I Block, Malda district in the New Alluvial Plains region of West Bengal. The area of the village is 1.24 sq km (Census of India 2001). The nearest railway station is in Samsi, about 6 km away.

In 2005, there were 107 households in Amarsinghi and the total population of the village was 522. The 2010 census-type survey covered 127 households. Fifty-three percent of the population of Amarsinghi at the 2005 survey consisted of households belonging to the Tanti and Napit castes (which are categorised in West Bengal as Other Backward Classes) and 45.4 percent were from Dalit households belonging to the Tiyor caste. There was one Santhal (Adivasi) household in the village.

A wide variety of crops were grown in Amarsinghi, the main crops being aman and boro paddy and jute. Potato, mustard, pulses (lentils and gram) were the other crops grown in the village. Different kinds of vegetables were grown in the village, although the acreage was small. A few households in the village also grew sugarcane and sold sugarcane juice in nearby Samsi.

Kalmandasguri village (Bararangras gram panchayat, Cooch Behar II block, Koch Bihar district) is in the Terai Teesta Region of West Bengal. Kalmandasguri was surveyed in 1988-89 as part of a study sponsored by UNU-WIDER. It was studied again in 1995 as part of a study of rural schooling in West Bengal, and again in 2005 as part of a study of landlessness and indebtedness in rural West Bengal. The data from the 1995 and 2005 surveys are in the FAS archive. It was studied in 2013 as part of a study of land reform by Ranjini Basu.

Koch Bihar, the district town, is 17 km away. At the time of the 2010 survey, the nearest markets were in Bararangras (3 km) and Pundibari (7 km). At the time, the village did not have electricity and had no all-weather road. No public transport was available from the village; the nearest bus stop was in Baudiardanga, where a bus passed through about five times a day. The nearest Public Health Centre was in Thanesar (3 km). There was one primary school and one Child Learning Centre (Shishu Shiksha Kendra) in the village. The nearest secondary school was in Baudiardanga (3 km).

As per the data from the 2005 survey, only about 33 percent of net sown area in the village was irrigated. There was no major expansion of irrigation facilities in the village between 2005 and 2010. Although a substantial part of the land in the village was double-cropped because of high rainfall, agricultural yields remained low. The major crops in the village were paddy and jute, and more recently, potato. Fishing was an important occupation among Muslim households in the village. Migration from the village for non-agricultural employment was also substantial.

At the time of the PARI survey of 2010, 148 households were resident in Kalmandasguri. The major social groups in the village were Muslim, Jogi, and Baishya Kapali (all classified in West Bengal as Other Backward Classes); Rajbanshi, Napit and Muchi (all classified in West Bengal as Scheduled Castes); Oraon, Munda, and Nagasiya (all Scheduled Tribe); and Kayastha.