If the policy-makers are worried about the unmanageable migration to urban areas in the country, they can look at Andhra Pradesh for a solution. |
The urbanisation study conducted by the state government's Directorate of Statistics and Economics alongside the Economic Census-2005 has revealed that the growth in migration from rural to urban areas in Andhra Pradesh between the two censuses conducted in 1991 and 2000 was only 27 per cent as compared with 49 per cent and above registered in the same period in the neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. |
The study found that the single most contributing factor in containing the migration to big cities in the state was the formation of smaller administrative units replacing the erstwhile taluks. |
This happened in the 80s when the then chief minister N T Rama Rao introduced mandals with the same administrative setup that the taluks had. |
With 25 villages each on an average, four to five mandals have been formed out of each taluk, which was about the size of an Assembly constituency. At present, there are about 1,128 mandals in the state. |
"The mandal headquarters have been provided with facilities like hospitals, schools and colleges by the government besides locating offices having varied responsibilities. Thus, each mandal centre has become the hub of economic activity in rural areas, helping people find alternative livelihood in their immediate vicinity instead of moving to bigger towns or cities," Saroja Rama Rao, director of statistics and economics, said. |
This trend is corroborated by the data on enterprises generated from the economic census conducted last year. Andhra Pradesh ranked number one in rural enterprises in the country with 28.95 lakh. |
West Bengal and Tamil Nadu occupy the next two places with 28.311 lakh and 27.36 lakh rural enterprises respectively. |
Andhra also ranked first among all the states in offering employment in rural enterprises with about 57.18 lakh persons employed in rural enterprises in the state as compared with 51.88 lakh in Tamil Nadu (second rank) and 49.21 lakh in West Bengal (third rank) |
While Maharashtra stood first in the number of urban enterprises, it came second when both rural and urban enterprises combined. |
In terms of total number of enterprises, Tamil Nadu stood first and West Bengal second while Andhra Pradesh ranked fourth with a total number of 40.23 lakh enterprises. |
Of these, 74 per cent of the enterprises are engaged in non-agricultural activities while 26 per cent are engaged in agricultural activities other than crop production and plantation, according to the economic census data. |
Further, the share of employment has gone up from 61.7 per cent to 64.5 per cent whereas the share of urban employment has come down from 38.3 per cent to 35.5 per cent in Andhra Pradesh between the fourth economic census carried out in 1998 and the fifth conducted last year. |
When asked if Andhra failed to provide urban employment as the above figures suggested, Saroja Rama Rao said that it was not the case. |
"Just because the growth in rural enterprises is much higher due to the factors that I told you, the growth in urban enterprises is lower," she said. |
While the average growth of enterprises between the two economic censuses in the state has been 38.6 per cent, it is 44.3 per cent with regard to rural enterprises and 26 per cent with regard to urban enterprises. |