Re: A case for the rapid urbanization of India

[venugopal <gvvs@nird.ap.nic.in>]

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I want to state a word of caution about urbanization.
It should not enhance the gulf between the village and the city/town.
Already there are a number of elements causing wide difference in the
lives of people living in villages and the town-dwellers:
1. Unpredictablity: Because of the continued widespread dependence of
indian agriculture on the 'gamble of monsoon', it affects all other
activities in the village. Nothing is certain, whether it is the wages
one gets for work, or the time of the bus journey or the price of the
agricultural product one is carrying to the town in truckload, or
whether a Babu in the town releases a document in the Nth trip, etc.
2. Power structure: This is not about electricity, though electricity
could be one of the components. The rural society is so stratified,
carrying out the legacy of the past unequal power relations, that
several issues lose their economic meaning when seen at the backdrop of
the social dimensions.If you belong to a particular caste, and if you
are rendering a service to somebody influential, you dare not ask for
its market price. When you require money, it is only the village
moneylender who can help and you dare not displease him in normal times
either. <One refreshingly fantastic intervention in recent years has
been the concept of self help groups of women, where 10 to 15 rural poor
women get together, pool their resources as thrift @ one rupee per
person per day, elect their own group leader and treasurer from among
themselves, and operate with the combined savings strength by nurturing
it over a period of time. The pooled amount is credited in a local bank
and as per need, individual members can approach the group for
borrowing, rather than going to the moneylender. The interest rate and
the repayment schedule are to be decided by the group themselves in a
democratic manner. This intervention has been working remarkably well in
Andhra Pradesh, though it is being attempted in most other States by
government agencies as well as NGOs.>
3. Distress sales: The prices of agricultural commodities are perhaps
increasing at the slowest pace in the country in last 50 years. Most of
the produce is operated through middlemen and the farmer generally has
not much say over the price because of sheer perishable nature of the
item,  lack of storage facilities and lack of  holding power. Except the
experiment of 'gyandoot' in Darr district of Madhya Pradesh, there has
not been systematic use of computers and IT for making information on
prices available to the farmers, though that addresses only a small part
of the problem. Another way of looking at the issue is to see the
proportion of income of urban dwellers like you and me, that is spent on
food. This proportion is coming down if you make a time line analysis,
which shows that the food producers, who live in the villages, are
getting less and less in the bargain, while they continue to produce for
the consumption of the whole society.
4. Failure of modern information to reach the villages: Many services
based on some known technologies have not really reached the villages,
whether it is electricity, telephones, solar lighting, rural sanitary
latrine, ground water data, water quality testing for potable water,
public health systems, institutional deliveries and other maternal
health facilities, better soil and water management methods,
agricultural extension services, pest care, preventive disease
information, credit support from banks,, a doctor or a teacher  and so
on. Most of these have nothing to do with the economies of scale that
was mentioned. They have not reached because of absence of will.
5. Free choice? : Migration of people from villages to towns may be a
happy instance in their own perspective on a temporary basis. It may
also be seen as something to break the normal caste order in the
village, which is not so pervasive in the towns.It may also give a
little better wages. But life as a slumdweller in the absence of urban
basic facilities is no better than being a villager, except that one has
opportunities of watching a film, committing petty crimes, earning some
extra income through prostitution etc which are the kind of
opportunities  not available so much in the villages. In the long term
analysis, in terms of the ability of the family and the offspring to
lead a life based on dignity with proper social and economic
opportunities, urban environment need not necessarily be the ideal.
6. Absence of social security net: The farmers and agricultural workers
have no way of absorbing market shocks or sudden pest atacks, or natural
calamities as the case of Cotton farmers in Andhra has demonstrated.
Most of the concepts like crop insurance are yet to concretize in
practice.
Therefore, whileI dont deny need for  proper urban planning, I would
advocate that our attention should also be directed to these issues.


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