Functional influence of urban centres, their growth and potentialities: an approach of rural development in Purba Bardhaman District

Urban centre act as a developmental hearth of propulsive goods and services, it’s playing a vital role in the development of the entire region. Each urban centre, being a centre of attraction and repulsion, has its proper fields which emanate economic development; it spread with variable intensities to the whole the region. But the size of urban fields depends on the degree of development of the town as a central place. Thus, urban centre’s grow in hierarchical manner with their specific influence zone, which has a large number of facilities with relatively large urban field and vice-versa. But in developing countries like India where urbanization process is less advanced and towns are widely spaced, subsequently, uneven distribution of the facilities varies from one town to another and as a result, the sphere of influences of the particular town also varies and this is the result of the emergence of vacuum zone. To narrow down such kinds of problems multipurpose comprehensive planning is required to promote or increase functional potentialities of the urban centre’s and diffusing urban developmental impulsion surrounding rural areas. That ensures a balanced development of all region of the country without leaving any unserved areas (vacuum zone).