Understanding India's Urban Frontier : What Is Behind the Emergence of Census Towns in India?

Mukhopadhyay, Partha ; Zerah, Marie-Helene ; Samanta, Gopa ; Maria, Augustin

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: urbanization;    census towns;    urban planning;    service delivery;    governance;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7923
RP-ID  :  WPS7923

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper presents the results of aninvestigation of selected census towns in northern India.Census towns are settlements that India's censusclassifies as urban although they continue to be governed asrural settlements. The 2011 census featured a remarkableincrease in the number of census towns, which nearly tripledbetween 2001 and 2011, from 1,362 to 3,894. This increasecontributed to nearly a third (29.5 percent) of the totalincrease in the urban population during this period. Onlypart of this evolution can be attributed to the gradualurbanization of settlements in the vicinity or larger towns.Instead, the majority of census towns appear as small"market towns," providing trade and other localservices to a growing rural market. The case studies ofrepresentative census towns in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, andWest Bengal show the role of increased connectivity andgrowing rural incomes in driving the demand for thesmall-scale and non-tradable services, which are the mainsources of nonfarm employment in these settlements. The casestudies also reveal that the trade-offs between urban andrural administrative statuses are actively debated in manyof these settlements. Although statistical comparisons donot show a significant impact of urban or ruraladministrative status on access to basic services, urbanstatus is often favored by the social groups involved in thegrowing commercial and services sectors, and resisted by theresidents still involved in the traditional farming sectors.