I disagree that terms urban, rural or urban-rural divide exist. There is no such thing as urban-rural divide. Seven per cent of Delhi is rural. The so-called divide or gap can hinge on various other factors like education, gender, etc, but not what you call urban-rural divide. Yes, there are various disparities at various levels in India based on geography.   

 

I would remind you that it is not about rural or urban. The issue is that employment growth has not taken place in a lot of parts of India since 1990. It is because employment means agriculture in villages. And as such there have been no agricultural reforms here. So the lesser we say about the employment growth in these parts of India the better it is. There are no alternative job opportunities in these places. As far as people running away to overflowing cities is concerned, these are the places where they get all the benefits, all the subsidies and infrastructure so why wouldn’t they.

See this is what I am trying to explain. Disparity in education is one of the means to bring out the divide in the country. But not urban Vs rural. I can definitely say that a huge section of populace in various areas of West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh remains uneducated. The penetration of literacy propaganda is just not there. 

 

The government has undergone fiscal crunch and so have the state governments. This resulted in very less investment in these places. I would call them marginalized. The disparity in terms of road, transport, telecommunications, and lack of non-farm based employment leads to negligible public or private investment in these villages or small towns. Whatever public expenditure has happened is on larger farmers and on agriculturists.     

 

I have a long list. Increase in public investment, decentralisation, free land markets, free insurances, removing unnecessary controls on markets, these are some of the needed reforms. Agrarian reforms have happened since so many years. It’s high time.

PURA was a government initiative towards the enlistment of the marginalized demography. Bharat Nirman, a four-year business plan for providing basic infrastructure in rural areas, has overtaken it.

 

India has a rural population of 742 million while it has 285 million urban citizens, which is not even half of the rural strength. Yet it is commonly noticed that majority of economic reforms are urban-centric?

What is urban-centric? I disagree with this. But definitely the reforms don’t seem to curb geographical depravation and perfectly suit areas where consumption growth is already high. The reforms have happened in some geographical parts of India, but not all.

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