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Abstract
The process of urbanization in India is linked to two mechanisms: one, administrative and the second, demographic and economic. In being used as criteria for differentiating urban from rural, either of these mechanisms can qualify a place as being urban, with the first being linked to the identification of statutory towns and the second to census towns. While statutory towns are notified under government acts, census towns are identified by the Census Commissioner and the Registrar General of India. This leads to a variation in the number of towns in the state. States in which the government is active in putting rural settlements or census towns under a municipal body inevitably see an increase in the number of their statutory towns alongside overlaps with census towns. Since census towns are governed by gram panchayats and statutory towns by municipalities, it is hypothesized that one of the reasons for the persistence of these urban categories may be due to genuine differences between the two in terms of basic infrastructure. This is an issue that is considered in the paper. The paper first analyses the extent of overlap between statutory towns and census towns in 20 major States and NCT Delhi, followed by an examination of differences between the two set of towns with respect to basic infrastructure. This part of the analysis has been undertaken on towns with a population of less than 20,000 persons. The Census of India database has been used for the entire exercise.
Keywords: Urbanization, Statutory Towns, Census Towns, Basic Infrastructure
Introduction
The process of urbanization in India is linked to two mechanisms: one, administrative and the second, demographic and economic. Either of these can qualify a place as being urban, with administratively recognized towns referred to as statutory towns, and demographic-economic based towns as census towns. To clarify, statutory towns are those which are notified under government acts and have a municipal body, corporation, cantonment board, or a notified town area committee as a governing authority. Census towns, on the other hand, are identified by the Census Commissioner and Registrar General of India on the basis of a set demographic and economic criteria.
These mechanisms for defining urban areas have been in place since the Census of 1891, when...