The Korku are a Scheduled Tribe of central India whose largest, most continuous settlement in Maharashtra as well as around the Melghat tract of Amravati district (Vidarbha). While ethnographic and programmatic writings repeatedly identify Melghat as the demographic “core” of the Korku in the state, a clear long-run, district-resolved picture of their population change has been missing. Such an empirical baseline matters for at least three reasons. First, targeting of health, nutrition and education interventions is typically tied to where people actually live—and how those locations have evolved. Second, the administrative map of Maharashtra has changed since 1961 (e.g., creation of Washim, Palghar, Hingoli, Gondia), so any statement about “trends” must be made comparable across district splits. Third, planners and scholars alike need a simple, reproducible way to quantify whether the Korku remain concentrated in one core or whether diffusion to secondary clusters has meaningfully progressed.

This paper addresses that gap through a census-based analysis of the Korku population in Maharashtra across six rounds—1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2011—using official district × tribe tabulations. The period is dictated by data availability and offers a clean half-century window long enough to detect structural change while short enough to keep administrative definitions manageable. Because district boundaries and names have changed, we harmonise the geographic units by aggregating split districts into stable groups (e.g., Akola-Washim, Bhandara-Gondia, Chandrapur-Gadchiroli, Parbhani-Hingoli, Aurangabad-Jalna, Osmanabad-Latur, Dhule-Nandurbar). This produces time-consistent series that sum exactly to the state totals in each year and allow meaningful decade-to-decade comparisons.

Position in the literature. Existing work on the Korku in Maharashtra typically emphasizes livelihoods, culture and health/nutrition in Melghat. Those accounts are invaluable for interpretation but do not by themselves deliver a harmonized, six-decade population trend and distribution for the state. Our contribution is to assemble and test that quantitative backbone, which complementary qualitative studies can then build upon.

Research objectives:

• Measure growth by quantifying decadal changes and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the Korku population in Maharashtra over 1961–2011.
• Identify the distribution of populations as well as Trends

Scope of Research.

• The study is confined to Maharashtra, it does not include Korku populations in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh or other states.
• The Results inherit the strengths and limitations of census enumeration.
• The work is purely demographic: it documents “how many” and “where,” leaving causal decomposition (fertility, mortality, migration) and thematic correlates (e.g., livelihoods, schooling, health) to future analyses or to be combined with independent datasets.

Contributions. Substantively, the paper confirms the persistence of a single dominant core with measurable peripheral diffusion; methodologically, it offers a lightweight template—harmonize units, compute shares and concentration, run two simple tests—that can be replicated for other Scheduled Tribes or carried forward when the next census becomes availabl.

The present research paper focuses on the population of the quantitative phenomenon of populations; thus, it’s definitely quantitative research methods applied under this research study. The descriptive and longitudinal research design has been undertaken to achieve predefined objectives.  The major data collection from the population census as a secondary data collection approach during the study. The testing tools like OLS, Chi-square test as well as HHI for concentration comparison have been applied here.

Korku’s Population Changes over the Period of 1961: 2011

Source: District-wise Major Tribes in Maharashtra State: Census-2011

Table:1 shows the Population for the period of 1961 to 1971 of Korku tribes in Maharashtra state. It has clearly indicated to the first decade has seen a 34.73 percent increase from 1961 to 1971, where 17463 population has an absolute increase. The second decade has 48232 absolute change as well as around 71 percent increase in population from the previous 1971.  The highest decadal changed found by 49.92 percent in fourth decade 1991-2001, with an absolute change of 70490 population during the period. The lowest percent change noted by 21.75 percent in third decade 1981-1991 during the period.

Figure:1

Table:2: District-Wise Distribution of the Korku Population

The Table:2 has provided the percentage distribution of the Korku’s population for the year 2011 as last census. It shows to the highest population distribution has fall in the Amaravati district by 91.04 percent. So most

concentration has been shown in the only one district.

Source: District-wise Major Tribes in Maharashtra State: Census-2011

The second-highest distribution, by 4.45 per cent, in Akola & Washim then after 2.24 percent population distribution found in the Buldhana. The Korku population has been negligible distributed in another districts after the Amravati, Akola-Washim and Buldhana.

Results:

1) OLS Log Trend Regression:

Table:3  OLS Regression

The present OLS Regression model clearly indicates to growth of Korku tribe population for 1961 to 2011 are large rate with steady which one statistically significance evidence. This one also indicating to 3.5 percent average growth per year and this one will seen cumulative by 5.3 rises over 50 years.  Thus this statistically testing results indicating to intercept of 10.8516-0.03405, t-states= 175.2646, 16.64, df= 4,4, p value=0.00, 0.000076  strongly significant of steady growth.

2) Chi-Square Result:

Table:4 Chi_square for 1981 Vs 2011

The Table:4 shows the chi-square test results : 1981 vs 2011 with chi-square value=793.96, df=6 and p value= 0.000 has strong significance of the Korku population of the 1981 has significant difference with 2011 population. So its directly indicates the change occurs during the periods.

3) HHI for Concentration Result:

Table:5       Herfindahl–Hirschman Index

Table 5 shows the HHI index for the concentration of population from 1981 to 2011. The major question of the concentration or spread of the population of the Korku tribes over the duration solve through HHI index. The result here clearly indicates that both years have higher concentration by 85 percentage and 83 percent, respectively 1981 & 2011. Here 0-10000 scale is included where 10,000 multiplication forming the index level of respective years.

4) CAGR Result:

Table 6 Compound Annual Growth Rate

Table: 6 shows to compound annual growth rate for five decades from 1961 to 2011. The first decade has 3.03 % CAGR noted which one increased in the second decade of 1971-1981 by 5.52. The lowest CAGR noted by 1.99 percent at third decade over 1981-1991. After the third decade, the CAGR rate spiked at 4.13 percent but then declined to 50 percent by 2.25 CAGR. The average of all decadal CAGRs has been 3.4 percent over the years.

The Korku tribes population has shown uneven growth during the study, where a higher concentration existing in the Amaravati district in Maharashtra state. The growth rate of the Korku population has been steady, as well as showing significant changes during the period. the statistical test also found a significant difference in five decadal changes of the Korku population in Maharashtra state where as the CAGR also average found by 3.4 percent. The long liner model  Nt​=e10.851562×e0.034046(t−1961)≈51,615×(1.0346)(t−1961) has been identified where 40.6 percent pre-decade growth by annual growth factor 1.0346.

1. Tribal Research & Training Institute (TRTI) (2011). District and Tribe-wise Population of Maharashtra State as per 1961 to 2011 Census. Government of Maharashtra.
2. Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India (2011). A-11: State Primary Census Abstract (PCA) for Individual Scheduled Tribes, Maharashtra – 2011. Office of the RGI.