Urbanisation dynamics has taken hold! We may expect that India’s population growth in future comes more from urban areas than from rural areas. IN PERSPECTIVE By M V Sridhara India’s recent census shows urbanisation is catching up. Urban population growth has surpassed that of its rural counterpart. During this decade ending 2011, this urban population has grown by 91 million whereas rural growth has been 90.5 million, an unprecedented occurrence. For comparison, these growths for urban and rural areas were respectively, taken in millions 17 and 62 in 1961; 30 and 79 in 1971; 49 and 87 in 1981; 58 and 105 in 1991; 70 and 112 in 2001. This trend change has several implications from the point of view of urban planning and rural development. Hereafter, we may expect that India’s population growth comes more from urban areas than from rural areas. Urbanisation has been concomitant with development of every description and has been adesired policy for long in the history of Indian planning. This was natural as traditionally Indian agriculture was low in productivity and sustained a very large population and they had all to be skilled and transplanted to non-traditional modes of possibly urban (-rural) livelihood. The distinction between an urban and a rural area has to be noted though this is incidental to the definition of a ‘census town’. Here the defining urban characteristics are one, population density of more than 400 persons per square kilometre; two, at least 75 per cent of the work force should constitute non-farm male workers; three, population must be at least 5,000. Though not comprehensive in providing the defining characteristics, these at least provide guidance for our thinking. Incidentally, non-farm rural incomes and thus employment are proportionately and certainly absolutely increasing in rural areas. Or, rural areas are getting increasingly grafted with urban types of employment, incomes and living. Intrinsic growth Urban population increase has many drivers. Intrinsic growth has serious limitations since urbanites being naturally more civilisationally exposed have taken to family limitation for long and more easily. And thus per woman births in urban areas have very much reduced perhaps to around two and population may not be increasing due to intrinsic urban births. But, migration from neighbouring areas and even from farther away places is happening; people in search of employment, skill training, improved economic opportunities, marriage etc. are flooding into urban centres. Clearly, push factors from villages are a modern reality. The case of larger cities and towns is different. As population increases, enfoldment of nearby rural regions also increases and the cities’ geographical areas grow; and old villages vanish and towns expand. Also, nearby bigger cities, due to various economic and social influences, villages grow and imbibe various urban features—resort to non-agricultural, service sector and manufacturing activities. In fact, these neo-village activities are credited with reverse urban-rural migration, a phenomenon needing to be studied. India’s million plus cities are about 50. Surrounding these, naturally are many urbanising villages and are contributing to a lot of rural non-agricultural incomes and urban-rural homogenisation. This homogenisation is highly manifest in respect of rural demand for education and particularly skill training; to sustain this urbanising trend, various types of services have got built into the village social fabric, including transport, trade, medical and laboratory services and maintenance and repairs service. These have resulted in the emergence of many towns in India’s hinterland; but these are observed to be lacking in the formalism and fact of urban administration. The state governments in charge are hesitant in this regard because they are afraid of losing out on possible rural grants; to confirm this tendency, the Tamil Nadu government on 11th June, 2004 reclassified 566 town panchayats as village panchayats. This is a serious blow to the task and formalism of organising urban administration on sound lines. Larger towns and cities are chronically inadequate with regard to meeting the growing civic needs of their people--water supply, housing, sanitation, electricity, roads etc. And therefore many people commute to these cities from neighbouring villages creating increased demand for bus and railway passes; complementarily, a sort of money order economy is developing in India’s villages—work and production and earning in cities and consumption in villages. In passing, we have to remark that this urbanisation has its impact on family life and its structure. The traditional joint family system is giving way and to that extent security to people, particularly the old and unfortunate members of society, is declining. Despite this apparent expectation and obvious happening, the recent census says that the proportion of urban families with two or more couples has increased to 16.3 per cent in 2011 from 14.5 per cent in 2001. This interesting fact provokes further sociological pursuit.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 06:13:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015