Bandyopadhyay, Piyali (2017) Smart Village as an Instrument to Curb the Rural to Urban Migration in India. REAL CORP 2017 – PANTA RHEI – A World in Constant Motion. Proceedings of 22nd International Conference on Urban Planning, Regional Development and Information Society. pp. 497-505. ISSN 2521-3938
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Text (Smart Village as an Instrument to Curb the Rural to Urban Migration in India)
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Abstract
Migration is an indicator to understand the degree of alteration in socio-economic, political sphere at national as well as international levels. It is also a symptom of disparity in economic and social aspects between the origin of migrant and destination of migrant. Disparities in regional development are main reason for migration in Indian. During year 1951 in India the share of urban population to the total population was only 17 percent. According to 2011 census of India the total population of the country is 1.2 billion with annual growth rate of 1.8 percent. The total urban population is 377 million, which is 31.6 percent of the total population of the country. Due to rapid industrial growth and agglomeration of economic activities, cities are pulling people from rural hinterland. The population is largely concentrated in a few large cities and metropolitan cities of the country, it accounts for 35.4 percent of the total urban population. The urbanization in India is mainly due rural to urban migration of population. During last 50 years the share of rural population of the country has decreased from 82.0 to 68.9 per cent. According to National Sample Survey 64th Round approximately a third of Indians (i.e. some 325 million people, out of a population of 1.14 billion in 2008) are migrants. Employment seems to be the prime force for migration; in rural areas, 55 per cent of the households have migrated for employment related reasons. Analysis of the statistical data says that after migration a higher percentage of the persons were found to be engaged in economic activities: for males the percentage of workers have increased from 51 per cent before migration to 63 per cent after migration in rural areas while in case of females, it has increased from 20 per cent to 33 per cent in rural areas. Getting employment is always a major area of concern. In most cases it is found that migrants are not getting job in urban areas according to their capacity, they are either engaged in lower capacity job or become self-employed. For rural males, self-employment has appeared as main choice to employment after migration. The share of self-employment in total migrants have increased from 16 per cent before migration to 27 per cent after migration, while the shares of regular employees and casual labours remained almost stable, in both before and after migration. The causes of migration are usually explained with two broad categories, namely, push and pull factors. For rural India, poverty is still considered to be the main push factor for illiterates and moderately educated migrants. The lack of employment opportunities in the rural areas and better employment opportunity and infrastructure facilities in the urban areas attract people to migrate to urban areas. In the rural areas, sluggish agricultural growth and lack of development of the rural non-farm sector raises the incidence of rural poverty, unemployment and underemployment. People from rural areas move towards town or cities with a expectation of better livelihood opportunities. The story of migration has its own tales of sorrow as several children turn into rag pickers and families have to live in inhuman conditions in urban areas. Many don’t get employment throughout the year and commute between urban and rural areas. However, for the landless and marginal farmers who are in constant debt, migration is the only choice for livelihood. Government of Indian has taken various initiatives towards rural development. Some of the rural development programmers undertaken by the Government of India are Community Development Programme, Twenty Point Programme, Drought Prone Areas programme, Desert Development programme, National Fund for Rural Development, Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology, Har Khet ko Pani, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, etc. All these programme/ Schemes aim to improve the rural economy. After implementation of Smart City Programme the Government of India has launched SMART Village –a community driven initiative for re-constructuring of rural India. It is also known as Rurban Mission. The National Rurban Mission aims at development of a cluster of villages which conserve and nurture the essence of the rural community life with focus on equity and inclusiveness without compromising with the facilities perceived to be essentially urban in nature, thus creating a cluster of ‘Rurban villages’. The Mission intends to simulate local economic development, enhance basic services and create well planned Rurban clusters. About 300 Rurban clusters will be developed over the next five years, which have latent potential for growth, in all States and Union Territories, which would trigger overall development in the region (.Ministry of Rural Development, 2016). In this article an attempt has been made to understand state wise spatio-temporal characteristics to rural to urban migration and to evaluate the smart city as a tool to curb the rate of rural to urban migration in future.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | employment, urban, rural, migration, smart village |
| Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform |
| Depositing User: | Maria Molnár |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Sep 2017 16:01 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Sep 2017 17:02 |
| URI: | http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/324 |
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