DR BANARSI LAL
Urbanisation has been widely acknowledged for its transformative power. Urban and rural areas depend on each other but still the rural areas lag behind in terms of development as compared to urban areas. Worldwide about 85 per cent of the poor still live in rural areas. Urbanisation comes with challenges to agricultural sector. Urban lifestyles tend to increase the consumption of processed food. As the urban population grows, hunger and under-nutrition also increases. In addition to access to healthy and nutritious food, access to clean water, toilets, space etc. are the challenges that may rise due to urbanization. Urbanisation also creates the opportunities to the rural areas to produce the diversified food that helps to improve the livelihood of the farmers. These opportunities can be grabbed by the strong rural-urban linkages. Rural-urban linkages are the physical, economic, political and social connections that link rural areas to urban areas. With strong links, village farmers can sell their farm produce in urban areas and labourers can get the seasonal work. The world is rapidly urbanising. According to the UN, by 2050 about 66 per cent of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. Keeping the rapid urbanisation in view, there is need to pay more attention towards the rural areas in the years ahead. There is need to stress on the rural-urban linkages to eliminate the poverty and promote the sustainable development. Strong linkages between the rural-urban areas can contribute in improving the living standards of rural people and creating the job opportunities for them. In India around 31 per cent of population lives in the rural areas which is expected to reach 50 per cent by 2050.
As per 2011 Census India is having 6, 40,867 villages and 7,935 towns/urban centers. Rural population in India accounts for 68.84 per cent and urban population 31.16 per cent. There exists a close linkage between rural and urban areas. Both rural and urban areas coexist along a continuum with multiple types of flows such as people, information, money, goods, capital and interactions. The rural-urban linkage has been mutually reinforcing and its potential can profitably be harnessed to ensure development of rural-urban economy in general and enable the poor and vulnerable rural and urban people in particular. Both rural and urban investment policies, programmes and strategies have a strong influence on socio-economic development and transformations. Investments in rural and urban areas have often been perceived as mutually exclusive and competing. Investments in rural areas assist to provide the basic amenities, facilities and services almost at par with urban areas but with major objective to reduce rural-to-urban migration while urban areas receive significant public investment, attract substantial private investments that bring state-of-the-art technology to express full development potential. Rapid urbanisation is almost inevitable and there is no historical evidence of policies and programmes to successfully prevent rural to urban migration. Educated rural work-force having aspirations and adequate resources certainly like to seek employment in secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy in urban areas.
There appears to be a dynamic synergy between agriculture in rural areas and micro, small and medium enterprises in urban areas which is a key to the development for the country as a whole. There is dire need to substantially minimize the rural-urban divide and simultaneously strengthen the rural-urban linkage so as to assure food-security, employment, reduce incidence of poverty, hunger and malnourishment and increase the income of rural and urban people in particular. Rural life is the principal pivot around which whole of the Indian social life revolves. India is a land of agriculture. The village is the primary unit of rural society. Rural society is the basic foundation of human life, the keystone of the developmental process and the basic unit of social structure. The rural communities are less voluminous and less densely populated. Caste stands as a pivot of rural social structure. It acts as the most powerful determinant of individual behaviour and social order in rural unity. The religious customs and practices in Indian village society vary in different parts of the country, depending upon their cultures and lifestyles. Fairs and festivals have always been an integral part of Indian village society.
Urban and rural development interacts through the flow of people, energy, capital, goods, information etc. Rural areas are potentially endowed with resources to develop farm and non-farm growth. Migration is one of the potential avenues open to poor rural people to increase their income and employment. Urban centers have better institutional infrastructure to cater services to rural households such as markets for their purchases and sales, banking and credit, government offices, medium and higher educational institutes, health services, transport and communication etc. Rural-urban areas are inter-connected together. Rural areas are the centers of production of agricultural and allied sector commodities and urban centers provide flourishing markets for the consumption, processing and export of these commodities. These commodities include food grains, vegetables, fruits, sugarcane, cotton, jute, plantation crops, spices, milk, meat, eggs etc. Production of agro- inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm equipments, machineries etc. move from urban areas to rural areas in order to increase farm output so that needs of rural households can be mitigated. It has been observed that large scale development of agro food-processing industries is a major key to strengthen rural-urban linkages. Rural to urban migration has been increasing because of rapid industrialization opening vast employment opportunities in urban areas in construction and manufacturing, different businesses and services. This improves rural economy as remittances from urban to rural areas help families of migrants to meet their family expenses. Mostly, marginal and small farmers, tenant farmers, share croppers, landless labourers migrate temporarily in urban areas when they do not find employment in rural areas due to various reasons. Rural migration creates pressure on existing population and infrastructure of urban areas to sustain the well-being. This has been manifested in the form of increasing rate of unemployment, homelessness, growth of squatter and slum settlements and inadequate infrastructure and services in the urban areas.
Rural-urban linkage can significantly be strengthened by creating various infrastructure facilities. Efforts need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the existing infrastructure such as all weather road connectivity, bridges on rivers and canals, efficient and affordable transport facilities, availability of electricity, telecommunication network comprising radio, community radio, television, telephone, cellphones, social media network, internet etc., print media such as newspapers, folders, leaflets, improving literacy rates among poor people, capacity building of local level primary institutions, banking institutions, post offices and business correspondents to deliver services, empowering farmers’ clubs, women Self Help-Groups(SHGs) and Joint Liability Groups(JLGs) to widen and deepen development through credit and banking. There are certain critical elements to change the rural scenario such as progressive increase in the output of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry and increase in trade business of farm goods and services. Rural households access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) provide technical services to develop agriculture in particular and rural economy in general. Emphasis should be given on increased decentralized governance structure at village/tehsil/ district level and focus on transparency and accountability while planning and implementing the growth and development oriented projects and programmes funded by the state and central government.
Rural people often visit urban areas either regularly or occasionally for their various requirements such as purchases, contacting government offices or agencies, hospitals whereas traders visit rural areas for business purpose and government officials or agencies visit rural areas for their assigned duties. It has been observed that some rural people also settle down temporarily or permanently in urban areas for business purposes or for employment in government and private services. Tourism usually refers to movement of people away from their residences for recreation during holidays and leisure hours, although many people sometimes combine it with conferences, visiting relatives and business trips. It is worth noting that these categories are not mutually exclusive. With the progressive institutionalisation of banking and credit institutions and their increasing presence in rural areas, rural-urban linkage help rural people avail various types of financial services such as remittances, savings, credit, insurance, payment of pension and other benefits under the government’s schemes. Substantial amount of savings mobilised from rural areas is moving to urban areas for providing credit and long-term investment in manufacturing and business sectors. Therefore, idle capital lying in one place is productively utilised in other areas for socioeconomic development of the community, geographical area and the country. The development of Information and Communication Technologies [ICTs] in recent years strengthened the rural-urban linkage. Access to information by the rural people about government’s programmes has facilitated significant improvement in the development of farm and non-farm sector. ICTs help rural people to avail employment opportunities in certain centers. Some rural areas have indeed witnessed sea change in the socio-economic transformation. Print and electronic media are playing a significant role in this case. Environmental degradation and pollution both in rural and urban areas have been progressively increasing at a faster rate as farmers in their efforts to substantially increase farm production indiscriminately use agro-chemicals and urban areas have been adding profuse amount of industrial wastes apart from carbon emission. Even infrastructure is under heavy pressure to sustain well-being of population. Urbanisation and industrialisation progressively expand their geographical boundaries extending to adjoining rural areas occupying arable land thereby polluting rural environment by letting out urban and industrial waste. This constitutes rural- urban linkage with many management implications. Both rural and urban areas should not be treated as different and competing development spaces. Both areas should be considered as a whole contributing to the integrated economic development of the country and linkages between rural and urban should be strengthened.
(The writer is Sr. Scientist & Head of KVK, Reasi Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Jammu).
