Category Archives: Reports

Employment and Unemployment situation in cities and towns in India

NSS Report No. 564: Employment and Unemployment situation in cities and towns in India (68th Round, 2011-2012)

This report is based on the employment and unemployment survey conducted in the 68th round of NSS during July 2011 to June 2012. In this report, estimates of the employment and unemployment indicators are presented for each of the class 1 cities, for size class 2 towns and for size class 3 towns.

Changes in WPR among persons of age 15 years and above between 2004-05 and 2011-12 for different size class of towns: Over the period 2004-05 and 2011-12, WPR for males of age 15 years and above decreased by about 2 percentage points for size class 3 towns as well as class 1 cities whereas it decreased by about 3 percentage points for size class 2 towns, while WPR for females decreased by nearly 6 percentage points for size class 3 towns and by 4 percentage
points for size class 2 towns and it remained almost at the same level for class 1 cities.

Self-employed persons: Among male workers in class 1 cities, about 37.9 per cent were self-employed and this proportion was about 42.7 per cent in size class 2 towns and 44.9 per cent in size class 3 towns and the corresponding proportions for females were 35.7 per cent, 42.5 per cent and 50.5 per cent for class 1 cities, size class 2 towns and size class 3 towns, respectively.

Casual labourers: Proportion of casual labourers among males was 7.5 per cent, 15.9 per cent and 21.2 per cent, respectively, for class 1 cities, size class 2 towns and size class 3 towns whereas the corresponding proportion for females was 6.5 per cent, 14.5 per cent and 22.2 per cent.

Farm to Non-Farm: Are India’s Villages “Rurbanising”?

Pranav Sidhwani, Centre for Policy Research, CPR URBAN WORKING PAPER, November 2014

he process of urbanization in terms of workforce patterns is largely considered to be unidirectional – increasing engagement of the workforce in non-agricultural occupational pursuits. Using a unique database matching Census data on rural settlements for 2001 and 2011, this paper shows that this process is not straightforward and is characterised by considerable variation and unpredictability. This poses several questions regarding policy implementation, and particularly, on where the focus of the government’s ‘RURBAN’ initiatives should be.

Census Towns in Kerala: Challenges of Urban Transformation

Yacoub Zachariah Kuruvilla, TISS, School of Habitat Studies, Graduate Student

Access to the paper

Abstract: This paper reviews the growth of urbanisation in Kerala with a special focus on census towns in Kerala using census data from 1961-2011 and State urbanisation report of the department of town planning. Kerala registered a massive increase in urbanisation from 25 per cent in 2001 to 47 percent in 2011. Major contribution of this increase was due to increase in number of census towns which are not governed by urban local governments. Census has defined census towns as ‘places that satisfy three fold criteria of population of 5000, 75 per cent of male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and density of  400 persons per sq.km. They can be easily defined as transitional urban areas at various levels of transition which is also known as urbanisation by implosion, where massive density of population, economic change and access to good level of public services leads to urban growth. In Kerala the growth of census towns can be attributed to improvement of transport facilities, massive decline of the male workforce in agriculture and related activities along with shift to tertiary sector. The paper highlights several challenges of planning and governance of census towns in Kerala such as spatial planning, waste management, traffic and transport management and use of centrally sponsored schemes. The paper concludes with the suggestion that institutional transition from village panchayats to town panchayats along with a proper legal framework may be reauired to deal with the challenges of this urban transformation.

City Forgotten: The Fate of Small Towns in India’s Urbanization

September 23, 2013 · by Ayona Datta

Late one evening, my academic partner Abdul Shaban, his research assistant Noor Alam and I reached Malegaon in a hired car via a long dusty road off the Mumbai-Nashik highway. We lost our way several times even though both Shaban and Noor Alam had been to Malegaon several times earlier, but the nondescript nature of the road and the journey through fields and industrial setups in the dark can confuse anyone. We reached Malegaon finally by asking local passers-by, who assured us that this was indeed the road to the infamous town.

Tindivanam and the agriculture: toward diversification?

A Master Thesis by Simon Perrier, 2012

Under the supervision of Frédéric Landy and Kamala Marius

UP10 – University Paris 10, Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

Full text access in French here

Tindivanam est une ville moyenne indienne de 70000 habitants située dans le Tamil Nadu, à 40 kilomètres au nord de Pondichéry et à 120 kilomètres au sud de Chennai, à l’intersection de deux autoroutes. Elle est le chef-lieu d’un taluk à très forte densité rurale, où l’agriculture occupe une forte proportion des familles. Les cultures maraîchères, et d’autres cultures commerciales, ainsi que des usages non agricoles, occupent une part croissante des terres de la région, aux côtés de l’arachide et du riz, traditionnellement cultivés. Des progrès considérables ont d’ailleurs été institués pendant la “Révolution verte” pour améliorer les rendements de ce dernier. Tandis que l’alimentation des Indiens est en grande partie basée sur les céréales et protéagineux, deux procédés de commercialisation qui permettent aux paysans de mieux vendre leurs productions maraîchères ont vu le jour à Tindivanam il y a quelques années. Il s’agit d’un “marché paysan”, concept de vente directe quotidienne destinée à la population locale, mis en place par le gouvernement tamoul, et d’un centre de collecte d’une grande chaîne de supermarché, Reliance Fresh, où les légumes livrés par les paysans sont destinés à alimenter les magasins de l’enseigne situés dans les métropoles. L’étude s’intéresse à l’impact que l’implantation de ces deux marchés peut avoir sur l’espace rural autour de Tindivanam, en se demandant comment l’un et l’autre, avec leur fonctionnement propre, modifient les pratiques et stratégies des paysans. Cette question nous permet de nourrir une réflexion quant à l’échelle à considérer pour comprendre les processus en cours dans l’espace rural de cette région du Tamil Nadu septentrional. On se base notamment sur une enquête de terrain menée dans le village d’Ural, et au sein des deux marchés.

 

 

Emerging Consumer Demand: Rise of the Small Town Indian

This White Paper from Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Nielsen India, titled Emerging Consumer Demand: Rise of the Small Town Indian (2012) takes a closer look at how the smaller Indian towns are leading the demand surge and shopping like metros. I believe, one of the inherent strength of the Indian economy – private consumption expenditure, will continue to remain the strongest pillar of the Indian growth story. Sustaining this consumption story is the rise of the small town consumer.

The Indian consumption landscape in the small towns is dramatically changing – higher disposable income, demographic dividend of a younger generation, heightened aspirations, increasing urbanization resulting in a growing number of nuclear families – all important and key factors leading this development.

Eight thousand towns, 630,000 villages, over eight million stores and 1.2 billion people! In such a diverse consumer universe, how do you measure demand, where is it strongest? North vs. South, the metros vs. Rural – the choices are endless. Nielsen has found that despite current inflationary environment, tier II and tier III towns are showing strong momentum with an improved demand appetite.

Rural-Urban Dynamics, poverty and smaller towns

Global Monitoring Report 2013:  Rural-Urban Dynamics and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

 Key message of the GMR 2013:

In the past two decades, developing countries have urbanized rapidly, with the number of people living in urban settlements rising from about 1.5 billion in 1990 to 3.6 billion (more than half of the world’s population) in 2011. The report finds that urban poverty rates are significantly lower than rural poverty rates and that urban populations have far better access to the basic public services, such as access to safe water and sanitation facilities, even though within urban areas asymmetries in access are large. If the forces of urbanization are not managed speedily and efficiently, slum growth can overwhelm city growth, exacerbate urban poverty, and derail MDG achievements. As the GMR points out, however, people are located along a continuous rural-urban spectrum, and large cities are not necessarily places where the urban poor are concentrated. Smaller towns matter greatly for urban poverty reduction and service delivery. GMR 2013 calls for an integrated strategy to better manage the planning – connecting – financing formula of urbanization.

Urbanisation beyond municipal boundaries

World Bank. 2013. Urbanization beyond Municipal Boundaries : Nurturing Metropolitan Economies and Connecting Peri-Urban Areas in India.

The report is organized into three chapters: chapter two looks at the pace and patterns of India’s urbanization, providing a 100-year perspective on demographic shifts and a 20-year perspective on the spatial distribution of jobs across India’s portfolio of settlements. The review is based on a careful, spatially detailed analysis of data from economic and demographic censuses, annual surveys of industry, national sample surveys, and special surveys of freight transport. This chapter provides diagnostics on whether Indian industry is adequately exploiting agglomeration economies and whether there are hints of specific barriers to the natural tendency of standardized industry to reshuffle from large metropolitan areas to smaller urban areas. Chapter three examines specific policy issues and investment bottlenecks that are curbing the pace and benefits of urbanization in India. The policy issues relate to land markets and housing, connectivity (within and between cities), and access to basic services. The purpose of this analysis is to unravel the specific distortions that may be preventing India from reaping the entire range of benefits of urbanization. Chapter four provides some options for policy reform, distilling lessons from relevant international experience. It provides options for establishing the ‘rules of the game’ that can define the workings of land and property markets as well as coordination of land use and infrastructure in cities. This chapter also provides a framework for policy makers to identify the role of regulatory and price reform in expanding infrastructure services and to make investments that enhance capacity.