By
K R Sudhaman
Nearly 800 million of 1.3 billion
Indian people still live in the over six lakh villages. If there has to be
meaningful and inclusive economic development these villages have to become
sustainable with adequate jobs and check urban migration. Studies suggest that
villages can develop only if densification happens so as to reap the benefit of
economies of scale. This densification happened in planned way in United States
and in India, it is unplanned leading to haphazard growth.
Census data indicates 57 per cent of
migration in the country happens from village to bigger village in search of
jobs as farming is increasingly becoming unsustainable due to fragmentation of
land holdings and rain dependent in majority of areas. People migrate to nearby
and larger village as cost of living is less compared to urban towns. Also
skills required are less.
Former rural development secretary S
Vijay Kumar, who is now distinguished fellow in TERI, has come out with a new
approach to economic development in rural areas that will not only be
sustainable but create much needed jobs as well and narrow the widening
rural-urban divide.
He has advocated creation of Mega
Panchayts, an intermediary between gram panchayats and nagar palikas to deal
with governance problem of mega villages called census town that have
mushroomed in rural India. At the moment census towns where majority of
migration takes place, is governed by neither panchyats nor nagar palikas.
Vijay Kumar, an IAS officer from
Himachal Pradesh cadre said that India has successfully tackled the problem of
food security to its vast population but not as yet dealt with the problem of
poverty.
Poverty in rural area can be tackled only when
the transition from farm to non-farm pursuits are facilitated in villages. This
can happen only through planned densification of villages so that economies of
scale operate in the development of infrastructure and industrial activities,
he said. Unfortunately this is an area
where inadequate attention has been paid so far. This is resulting in
rural-urban divide. In all developed countries, only 5-8 per cent of population
depended on agriculture for livelihood. The rest are in non-farm activities due
to densification of villages that had happened overtime, Vijay Kumar said.
There is a serious governance issue
with regard to census towns as it is nobody’s baby and the clock is ticking. In
India typically a village has a population of 500-3000. There are less than
4000 villages with population of over 10,000. Villages are governed by
Panchyats and towns are governed by Nagar Palikas (urban local bodies). In
Kerala Panchyats are large and have population as high as 25,000, which meant
densification of villages has happened by itself. Economies of scale, essential
for development, operate only if there are at least 10,000 persons in a
village.
The migration is largely from villages
to the census towns. This is evident from the fact that census towns have grown
nearly three-fold. Census towns have grown from 1362 in 2001 to 3892 in 2011.
Census towns are basically villages with over 5000 people.
West Bengal (780) had the highest
number of census towns in 2011, followed by Kerala (461), Tamil Nadu (376) and
Maharashtra (278). Almost the entire growth in urban population in Kerala
between 2001 and 2011 was due to additional CTs.
“Census town amenities are not good as they
are not planned because it is combination of 2 or 3 panchyats. So there is no funding preference for
urbanizing part of panchyat. It is not equipped to support densification. The
crucial point is one cannot plan densification covering multiple panchyats
without appropriate governance,” Vijay
Kumar said adding “there is a governance fracture.”
.
Well developed census towns will
promote job creation. Studies show a mere Re 1.1.5 lakh investment is enough
create one job in rural India creates a job whereas it takes at least Rs 5-6
lakh in urban areas.
Typically, Rs 60 crore development
budget annually over next decade or so in such mega panchyats or census towns
will create much needed urban amenities in rural India as envisaged by former
President, Late Abdul Kalam.
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission
launched by Narendra Modi Government is an attempt to realize Kalam’s dream but
so far it appeared to be not well thought out mission. Also, only 100 clusters
of villages are proposed to be developed under the mission and not all the 4000
odd census towns in the country. (IPA
Service)
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