Page 31 - Shelter - April 2023

POLICY REVIEW

Urbanisation,” it is equally The establishment of PURA under development, coupled
important to promote would include: 1) Grouping with digital technology,
“Directed Urbanisation” in of several adjoining villages offer a unique opportunity
terms of many small and to contain a population of a for corridor pattern of
medium size towns. Growth few thousand; 2) Connecting urbanisation.
of metropolitan cities, both the villages in the group with
in number and size, needs to each other by a circular road; Promote Balanced
be discouraged. Aggregation 3) Operation of transport Urbanisation Pattern
and concentration of people service along the interlinking The pattern of urbanisation
and activities are no more road; 4) Location of secondary by states/regions, is
necessary or relevant. and tertiary sector activities in highly skewed. States like
Planning and development of the villages with distribution Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil
Provision of Urban Facilities of the different types of Nadu are comparatively
in Rural Areas (PURA) activities in different villages. highly urbanised while
offer an opportunity in this People from each village some like Odisha, Bihar,
direction. would be moving to all other Uttar Pradesh are low
villages to avail of the urban in urbanisation. The
PURA, conceptualised comparative economic status
by Prof. Indiresan and facility. This would promote
vigorously promoted by social cohesion amongst the is correlated to urbanisation
the then President of India, villagers. Over a period, the level. The policy is to
Dr. Abdul Kalam, was PURA would obtain some accelerate the urbanisation of
completely misunderstood characteristics of an urban all the states. The objective to
and misinterpreted as rural area, while retaining rural be that no state has less than
development by the field activities. PURA heralds the 50% urbanisation.
implementers. The national change in the direction of One important factor
objective is to double the urbanisation. The change promoting urbanisation is
income of farmers. To do this, will be the shift away from the degree of accessibility
some have opined that it is big cities to small cellular and connectivity. Presently,
necessary to move half the communities. The change India has a major programme
rural population out of their is from RURBAN (rural to of intense development of
villages into urban centres. urban) to CiVILLAGE, a term transport and communication
This is a complex task with coined by Kakodkar (city to system in terms of massive
many negative impacts. village). development of road and
PURA provides an alternative Promote Corridor Pattern of rail networks and Digital
strategy. It envisages Urbanisation Technology. This, coupled
movement of secondary and with other programmes,
tertiary activities into rural The urbanisation pattern should help in achieving
areas to provide economic needs to change from a balanced urbanization
opportunities to the surplus “Cluster Pattern” to one pattern.
rural labour at the village of “Corridor Pattern” all
itself. Instead of demographic along the transport network Accessibility and connectivity
shift, it is occupational system. The extensive road are factors enabling
transformation. and rail network systems urbanisation. India has a major

April, 2023, Volume 24. No.1 - SHELTER 29