Rural transformation in India Strategic vision from the Eleventh Plan IN INDIA RURAL IS DEFINED AS NOT URBAN AND URBAN IS DEFINED AS: (A) ALL PLACES SO ADMINISTRATIVELY NOTIFIED (B) OTHER PLACES WHICH SATISFY ALL THE FOLLOWING: MINIMUM POPULATION OF 5,000 AT LEAST 75% OF MALE WORKERS IN NON-AGRICULTURE A DENSITY OF POPULATION OF AT LEAST 400 SQ. KM.
India is urbanising, but rather slowly and in a concentrated way. Currently about 30% of India s population is in urban areas, up from 17% in 1951 and 23% in 1981. 70% of current urban population live in about 400 towns of above 100,000 population size. Such towns numbered 76 and 218 in 1951 and 1981, accounting for 45% and 60% of urban population. Towns less than 100,000 population increased from 2767 in 1951 to 3987 in 2001 but their share in India s population has actually declined. Urban growth is mainly through natural increase, boundary changes or areal reclassification. Rural-urban migration has accounted for less than 30% of urban population increase since 1981, and less than 20% of the rural natural increase. India s rural population is now about 830 million, living in about 600,000 villages. In 2001, 54% of the rural population lived in the 17% of villages with more than 2000 population.
Rural-Urban Disparities are large 55% of rural females and 36% of rural males are illiterate, as compared to 30% and 19% in urban. Infant mortality is 61 in rural against 37 in urban. 46% of rural children are underweight and 41% of rural women have low BMI, against 33% and 25% in urban areas. Only 50% of rural people have pucca houses and 60% electricity, compared to over 90% in urban. 78% of rural households still use firewood for cooking. Less than 10% of rural households own mechanised transport as compared to over 30% in urban.
Income and Consumption Data also show large and growing disparity, but there are optimistic signs as well Ratio of urban to rural Latest data show urban per capita NDP 2.8 times rural and urban private consumption 1.9 times rural, with both ratios up significantly since 1980. What this means in terms of relative welfare and poverty depends on urban-rural price differentials, and there is some controversy. However, interestingly, these ratios have stabilised in most recent years when overall GDP growth increased.
A feature of India s rural transformation: those in agriculture are falling behind but the rural economy is becoming less agricultural Agriculture Share in Overall Income and Employment Agriculture Share in Rural Income and Employment
The rural economy diversified most during a period when agriculture decelerated hugely A combination of factors caused agricultural growth to decelerate sharply during the decade from mid-1990s to mid-2000s During this period, considerable farmer distress and also diversification out of agriculture by the young and relatively rich. Interestingly, more of the poor took to cultivation Although considerable rebound in agricultural growth since then, concerns remain regarding future sustainability
This particular phase of rural diversification may be quite different from past patterns In the past, it was agricultural growth and demands emerging from this that had spurred rural diversification, with expansion of the public sector into rural areas also playing a major role. Between 1993-2005, agriculture slowed down sharply and public employment in rural areas contracted. The growth of rural non-agriculture during this period was strongest in mining, manufacturing, construction, trade and transport and weakest in community, social and personal services. Moreover, regional patterns of rural growth appear to have got more correlated with urban growth and less with agriculture. Cheap labour and land and appear to be attracting into rural areas investment that had earlier gone mainly to urban areas.
While clearly increasing rural incomes, this development almost certainly increased inequalities within rural areas During the period before 1993-94, the Gini coefficient of rural consumption was decreasing. This was reversed thereafter. Inequalities in rural areas are even more in the social and agro-climatic dimensions than in the income/ consumption dimension. Tribal populations are locked in small settlements with poor infrastructure and competing demand for natural resources affects their livelihood. Scheduled castes, some religious minorities and women clearly face discrimination and are also likely to have less education. Infrastructure and agro-climatic deficits cause about a third of the districts in India to be much poorer than the rest.
In 2004, the UPA government came to power, defeating the Shining India slogan of the BJP The UPA/11 th Plan architecture: Bharat Nirman Backward Regions Grants Fund Integrated Watershed Development Horticultural & Food Security Missions Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojana Sarva Siksha Abhiyan Panchayati Raj as an agency Enactments: National Rural Employment Guarantee Right to Information Tribal and Forest Dwellers Act Right to Education This is an ongoing vision that has its critics and needs to be compared in detail with other types of Rural Development Interventions.