The Resurgence of Smaller Cities

By Rajesh Chaubey

Feb. 15, 2008

India is making headlines in almost every walk of life. The economic boom has been a catalyst for the fast-track development across the nation. In the past, India’s development had been restricted to a handful of its cities while a majority of the population living in rural agricultural India did not benefit from this growth. Young people from across the rural stretches of this vast country migrated to these few cities in search of jobs. They ended up as rickshaw wallas, laborers, taxi drivers or with small time businesses. This mass exodus fueled hatred among the local populace as these outside people grabbed the opportunities in their lands. Politicians, true to their ilk, exploited these sentiments to turn Indians against Indians and grab votes from some gullible, foolish voters. We have recently seen this phenomenon repeated in Maharashtra.

Another casualty of this phenomenon was that almost all able bodied, young men abandoned their homes in rural India to migrate to the fast developing metros and agriculture was left in the hands of the aged, women, and children.

However, things are changing fast in the recent times and smaller cities have caught up with fast-paced development and urbanization. The International Institute for Environment and Development very recently released its report which shows the trend. Smaller Indian cities are rated amongst the fastest growing cities in the world considering rate of urbanization.

According to the report, eleven cities in India are amongst the 100 fastest growing cities of the world! Further, India is second to only China in this growth race. These are not the large metros of India, but the smaller cities of the country. The fact that these cities have earned a mention in the Top 100 list speaks volumes of the overall nationwide development happening in India. The country has not only managed to develop its metros, but the economic boom has also touched the smaller cities of the country.

As per the study, the fastest growing cities in India are Durg – Bhilai, Ghaziabad, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Guwahati, Surat, Asansol, Dhanbad, Vishakhapatnam and Faridabad.

Such dispersed development means that more opportunities will be found close to home and able bodied, young men need not migrate to far off places looking for work. It also means better development of infrastructure, education, industrialization, health care and reduction in poverty all across the country. Further, it means that the aged father will have his sons by his side when he tends to his fields and the agriculture sector stands to gain.

Though the Indian media, obsessed as it has always been with selling sensational sad and bad stories, is busy highlighting incidents like the bashing up of innocents in Maharashtra, the other side of the story needs to be told as well. We are on the right track though the larger story of a fast developing India hardly gets reported. Indians are busy working towards ushering in another golden age even as a few uncouth politicians, who are best ignored, create trouble and raise tsunamis in the Indian media.
 

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