Urbanization refers to increasing number of people leaving towards towns and living together. Cities grow physically -literally and city planners are coming out with various plans for moving these people and goods day in and day out. The result is more roads and vehicles ; more rails and coaches ; tunnels and sub ways ; elevated or hanging .... road ways, water ways, rail ways and in all ways searches are on to accommodate them in shelters called homes and providing them spaces for educational , recreational and health restoration too.
The world over two main reasons prompt people migrate towards cities. The less opportunities and comforts in the rural areas and promising vocations and comforts in the cities. Historically cities are seen via films by the rural populace including this author. The fast moving cars, flamboyant malls, sky high buildings and colorful posters and artificially laughing city folk tempt the villagers to move towards cities. On reaching cities either they too acclimatize to the new environs or struggle to cope up with the cut throat competition that exists here. In the rural side if the crops don't fail the farmer succeeds. But in the urban areas people keep talking about 'growth' 24X465 non-stop. I think they talk about the economical growth alone. They fix targets and revise them every quarter. For instance the Reliance Industries ' Revenues for FY 2012-13 were Rs. 371,119 crore ($ 68.4 billion), Net Profit was Rs. 21,003 crore ($ 3.9 billion), Net worth was Rs. 176,766 crore and Total Assets were Rs. 318,511 crore, unparalleled in the Indian Private Sector.
But the hunger for growth is growing ever. This attitude of the educated classes is the major hurdle for the survival of the ordinary masses. Wealth is accumulated in certain pockets and the existence of the poor becomes a big question mark. This is not to argue that none should grow economically and remain stagnant but to search for ways for an equitable distribution of opportunities and wealth evenly.
To stop migration ...
- Allow the farmers to fix the prices for their produce ( Today the governments fix prices for paddy and wheat whereas any byproduct that returns from cities out of these two grains are fixed by the factories)
- Want clarity further? A kilogram of potatoes price is fixed by the middle men and the seller and not the farmer who produces it.
- Ensure water for cultivation
- Support their water bodies and go on creating water bodies at every opportunity
- Ensure their health care
- Ensure quality schools and colleges
- Ensure minimum infrastructure like roads and mobility
What they don't want....
Nothing free as they offer today.
For instance in Tamilnadu the government gives to almost all her residents :
- Free rice 20 kg/35 kg for month , power for farmers, televisions, mixers, grinders, fans, no fees for students up to class XII , books, uniforms, cycles, bus/train passes and so on.
The rural populace wants nothing of these free. They want just water, health care, transport and education most important RIGHT TO FIX PRICES FOR THEIR PRODUCE and nothing else. If this is done definitely the rush towards cities would stop dwindling.
The Roadside Stand by Robert Frost
The little old house was out with a little new shed
In front at the edge of the road where the traffic sped,
A roadside stand that too pathetically pled,
It would not be fair to say for a dole of bread,
But for some of the money, the cash, whose flow supports
The flower of cities from sinking and withering faint.
The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead,
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
At having the landscape marred with the artless paint
Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong
Offered for sale wild berries in wooden quarts,
Or crook-necked golden squash with silver warts,
Or beauty rest in a beautiful mountain scene,
You have the money, but if you want to be mean,
Why keep your money (this crossly) and go along.
The hurt to the scenery wouldn’t be my complaint
So much as the trusting sorrow of what is unsaid:
Here far from the city we make our roadside stand
And ask for some city money to feel in hand
To try if it will not make our being expand,
And give us the life of the moving-pictures’ promise
That the party in power is said to be keeping from us.
It is in the news that all these pitiful kin
Are to be bought out and mercifully gathered in
To live in villages, next to the theatre and the store,
Where they won’t have to think for themselves anymore,
While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey,
Swarm over their lives enforcing benefits
That are calculated to soothe them out of their wits,
And by teaching them how to sleep they sleep all day,
Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way.
Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear
The thought of so much childish longing in vain,
The sadness that lurks near the open window there,
That waits all day in almost open prayer
For the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car,
Of all the thousand selfish cars that pass,
Just one to inquire what a farmer’s prices are.
And one did stop, but only to plow up grass
In using the yard to back and turn around;
And another to ask the way to where it was bound;
And another to ask could they sell it a gallon of gas
They couldn’t (this crossly); they had none, didn’t it see?
No, in country money, the country scale of gain,
The requisite lift of spirit has never been found,
Or so the voice of the country seems to complain,
I can’t help owning the great relief it would be
To put these people at one stroke out of their pain.
And then next day as I come back to sane,
I wonder how I should like you to come to me
And offer to put me gently out of my pain.
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