A Sociological study on Status of Quality of Life among citizens of Hubli-Dharwad city

Today, population is increasing at such an alarming rate that material resources have failed to keep pace with it. There is a less land but more people. It has more mouths to feed but less food. There are more schools and yet more illiterates. The unemployment is increasing. There is very slow improvement in our living conditions. The expression quality of life denotes a relatively recent idea that has grown more complex over time. But it is perhaps one of the most potent factor in determining the character and extent of development and progress of any country. The present study focuses attention especially on the Quality of Life of Indian Urban people. It will be conducted in the Hubli-Dharwad city, Karnataka. It seeks to understand the status of Urban Quality of Life. From the findings of the study it is understood that basic facilities are not at all good in the Hubli-Dharwad city. Therefore it is suggested to the authorities of the concerned department and municipal corporations to take the immediate measures to facilitate such needy ones in the context of sociological healthy environment.


Introduction:
Today, population is increasing at such an alarming rate that material resources have failed to keep pace with it.There is a less land but more people.It has more mouths to feed but less food.There are more schools and yet more illiterates.The unemployment is increasing.There is very slow improvement in our living conditions.Even with the best intentions and planning it may not be possible to solve the problems associated with expansion of education, un-employment, poverty, shortage and inadequacy of civic amenities etc. Unless these problems are tackled in the context of the total population problem of the country, any planning to develop material or human resources is bound to fail without a concurrent reduction in the incidences of births.
The expression quality of life denotes a relatively recent idea that has grown more complex over time.But it is perhaps one of the most potent factor in determining the character and extent of development and progress of any country.Many development activities also affect the environment in a way that typically affect the quality of life of urban people.Environmental pollution is one of the serious problems faced by the people especially in the urban areas, which not only experiences a rapid growth of population due to high fertility and increasing rural urban migration but also industrialization which is accompanied by growing number of vehicles.

Quality of Life:
The term "quality of life" is extremely complex; it is affected by a number of factors, and in the literature is interpreted in different ways.It should be noted that the history of the term itself depends on the work of economists and sociologists including John Kenneth Galbraith, Denisa Riesman and Ronald Freedman, who were associated with the criticism of the consumer lifestyle in the USA.They criticized the orientation of American society on consumption and its emphasis on the quantity of produced and consumed goods negatively affects quality of life.Moreover, in such a lifestyle they saw wasted • Email: editor@ijfmr.com

IJFMR23012415
Volume 5, Issue 1, January-February 2023 2 resources and a danger to humanity.Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of living, which is based primarily on income.

Review of Literature :
Nor Rashidah Zainal et al in their study on " Housing Conditions And Quality of Life of the Urban Poor in Malaysia", measured the quality of life by four dimensions: health status, personal safety, existing social support and involvement in social activities.They witnessed in their study a high number of respondents (52 %) claimed of having chronic illness but only 13 per cent were seeking hospital treatments for their illnesses.Respondents also reported of feeling vulnerable and stressful.On a poverty scale of 1 to 10 where 1 stands for "very poor" and 10 stands for "not poor", almost 60 per cent ranked themselves as below.However, 50 per cent also reported of an increase in their living standards for the past two years.Further the findings provide empirical evidence of the relationship between poverty, housing conditions, and quality of life.Housing is not only physical shelter but also plays a significant role in a person"s physical, mental, and emotional health conditions with regards to the qualitative dimensions provided by the housing condition and the surrounding environment of the housing area.
Unfortunately, the housing conditions of the urban poor in Malaysia are lacking all these aspects and failed to provide these important dimensions.Due to the strong significant relationship with the quality of life, they highly suggest that housing condition to be seriously considered as a socio-economic indicator in the assessment or measurement of urban poverty.A study should also be done on finding the optimal housing conditions of the urban poor in Malaysia in terms of the physical aspect of the house(design, size, materials used) and the surrounding areas (location, landscape, availability of public amenities and services).Failures to address the housing issues of the urban poor might cause the group to be continuously marginalized in the society and deprived of a quality of life.
Jha found that the quality of life of the slum dwellers is low and it differs from slum to slum.
In their study on "Measuring the quality of Urban life and neigbourhood satisfaction: Findings from Gazimagusa (Famagusta) Area Study" DeryaOktay and Ahmet Rustemli revealed that, compared to satisfaction with an individual"s dwelling and the immediate neighborhood and its attributes, satisfaction with overall quality of urban life in Famagusta is lower.While almost two-thirds(66 per cent) of the overall sample were satisfied with their neighborhood, just 40 per cent were satisfied with the Quality of urban life.In general, people in Famagusta are more likely to be dissatisfied than satisfied than satisfied with recreational facilities, greenery, maintenance of streets, and traffic in their city.However, an important point needs to be attended when one interprets the mean values.
Considering the limited range of responses, the standard deviations are high.This means that there were high degrees of differences among the city dwellers in respect to satisfaction domains of the city and the urban life, and a preliminary study by the authors have proved the existence of these

Statement of the Problem:
The present study intends to assess and analyse the quality of life in an urban setting.There is widely prevalent notion that urban quality of life is good as compared to rural.But because of governments negligence, rapid urbanization process and industrialization the quality of life in an urban setting of India has gone down heavily.In this context it is necessary to assess and understand the real picture of urban quality of life in India.The lack of services such as water supply, sanitation, drainage of the storm water, treatment and disposal of waste water, management of solid and hazardous wastes, supply of safe food, water and housing are all unable to keep pace with urban growth.Also the unplanned location of industries in urban and suburban areas followed by traffic congestion, poor housing, poor drainage and garbage accumulation causes serious.

Objectives of the Study:
The present study has been under taken with the following objectives; 1) To assess the indictors of Quality of Life in selected study area.
2) To analyse the impact of Urban Quality of Life on the well-being of family in particular and society in general.
3) To analyse the sociological implications of the findings of the study and to put forth suggestions towards the improvement of Quality of Life.

Importance of the Study:
The present study focuses attention especially on the Quality of Life of Indian Urban people.It will be conducted in the Hubli-Dharwad city, Karnataka.It seeks to understand the status of Urban Quality of Life.The significance of the present study is that it analyses the sociological implication of the study that is how the urban quality of life influence on family well-being in particular and society well-being in general.So far no study has been conducted exclusively in sociological context.A few studies available deals exclusively in environmental perspective rather than sociological aspects.

Data analysis and Interpretation :
The city of Hubli-Dharwad has 10,00,000 respondents, among out of which 100000 respondents have been selected with the help of random sampling by using lottery method.All respondents who are able to read and write are consisting of 100000 respondents have been selected while identifying universe or population for the study the following criteria are considered in order to fulfil the objectives of the study: 1. Respondent should be above the age group of 30 years.
2. Respondents should be married 3. Respondents should have undergone education.
Based on the above requirements the eligible population in the study area was 100000 and out of the total universe, 384 which constitute the total universe were selected as respondents for the present study.From the above table which shows the status of the public toilets in the Hubli-Dharwad city almost 71 per cent and 19.27 per cent of the respondents in the study were not at all satisfied and not very satisfied with the status of public toilets.Only 3 per cents were of the opinion that they are fairly satisfied.And 7.04 per cent stated that they don"t know or not applicable.Table 2 shows that 57.55 per cent and 22. 92 per cent of the respondents were "not very satisfied" and "not at all satisfied" respectively in the study on the Cleanliness of the cities.Further only 3.9 per cent fairly satisfied and 2.34 per cent of the respondents were very satisfied with the cleanliness of the both cities.Only 13.29 per cent were of the opinion that they don"t know or not applicable.The above table reveals that almost 46 per cent of the respondents in the study were "not at all satisfied" and 25. 26 per cent were not very satisfied with the quality of the air which is prevailing in the Hubli -Dharwad city.Only 7. 03 per cent and 8.08 per cent were very satisfied and fairly satisfied respectively with the quality of air prevailing in Hubli-Dharwad city.14. 32 per cent were responded as Don"t know/ not applicable.According to above table almost 72 per cent of the respondents were very dissatisfied and 21.36 per cent of the respondents are dissatisfied with the status of the roads in Hubli-Dharwad city.Only 2.08 per cent and 1.04 per cent were of the opinion that they are satisfied and very satisfied respectively.Further 4.16 per cent of respondents opined that they are neither satisfied or dissatisfied with the status of roads in the Hubli-Dharwad City.From the above table, it is revealed that, 59. 13 per cent of the respondents in study were very dissatisfied with the availability, quantity and quality of water which is basic thing to any individual in particular and society in general.Further 25. 52 per cent of the respondents were of the opinion that they are also dissatisfied with the water facility available to their residence.Only 8.07 per cent of the respondents opined that they are satisfied and 1. 56 per cent are stated that they are very satisfied.Further 5. 72 per cent of the respondents were expressed that they are neither satisfied or dissatisfied towards the water facility to their residence.

Measurements
No The above table shows the respondents opinion on overall satisfaction of their life.In which 71.09 per cent of the respondents opined that they are not at all satisfied with the satisfaction of overall life.Further only 10.93 per cent of the respondents were of the opinion that they are satisfied with the overall life satisfaction.5.72 per cent and 4. 68 per cent were stated very satisfied and fairly satisfied towards their overall life satisfaction.

Findings of the Study:
1. Majority i.e. 71 per cent and 19.27 per cent of the respondents in the study were not at all satisfied and not very satisfied with the status of public toilets.
&Tripathi in their study on "Quality of Life in Slums of Varanasi City: A Comparative Study" in the year 2014 witnessed different results from different parameters.They witness that 7o per cent of sample household in slums used electricity, while 30 per cent household used kerosene as a source of lighting.But it is notable that majority of household had no legal connection, 36 per cent of cooking LPG is used by the majority of sample household.Though very little numbers of people have got LPG connection, most of them use "the small cylinders of 2 kg and 4 kg".Further 32 per cent residents of slums use illegal electric connection for illuminating their heaters.And rest using kerosene, coal and cow-dung-cakes for cooking.64 per cent residents of slum areas use water of hand pumps, while 36 per cent use water of municipal tap for drinking.Further out of 150 houses, 128 houses had • Email: editor@ijfmr.comIJFMR23012415 Volume 5, Issue 1, January-February 2023 3 only one with poor sewerage and no adequate arrangement for the dumping of domestic wastes, result of which only one third households used the place fixed by municipality for the dumping of domestic wastes.48 per cent of slum dwellers used private clinic and 35 per cent used government hospital, while 17 per cent used traditional medical practitioner, and the area has poor literacy condition in the slums of Varanashi, where the female literacy is very poor which indicates bad condition of women.Overall it is differences (Oktay, Rustemli, and Marans, 2009).MojdehNikoofam, AbdollahMobaraki in their study on "Assessment of Quality of Life in the Urban Environment; Case Study : Famagusta, N. Cyprus" found that, Famagusta, as one of the most important cities in North Cyprus, is evaluated according to these indicators.Although people are not pleased or satisfied with the maintenance and management of the trails, the safe urban environment and sense of place attachment enhances individual well-being, level of satisfaction, and the quality of life in the city.Furthermore mixed land uses, familiar or friendly environment, diversity, easy access to different types of housing, and cultural aspects of the city help increase the level of satisfaction.In their study on " A perception Survey for the Evaluation of Urban Quality of Life in Kocaeli and a Comparison of the Life Satisfaction with the European Cities" Nihal Senlier, ReyhanYildiz, E. DigdemAktas, found that, In the industrial city of Kocaeli, in time, the industrial and residential areas overlapped and developed in an unhealthy and unplanned manner.Shifting of development areas towards agricultural and forest areas as a result of rapid increase in population, and the continual decrease in the environmental quality are emerging as very important threats for the sustainable development of Kocaeli city.The main environmental problems are the pollution of the Gulf as a result of domestic and industrial wastes, and air, water and noise pollution resulting from the industry.Dense accommodation structure of the city, and inadequacy of green areas in the urban areas are important factors in the decrease in the air quality.On the other hand, D-100 highway and the railway passing through the center of the city cause noise pollution.