An appraisal of urbanization status of villages in a particular block of West Bengal: An exploration through construction of a generalized Urbanization Index

Growing urbanization is a significant phenomenon of socio-economic development in developing countries. Urbanization means intensive economic activities by a large number of people in a relatively small plot of land, where secondary and tertiary sectors play a dominant role and where certain amenities are bound to be available. In India, the Census Authority usually looks after and provides data regarding the nature of a few urbane characteristics for the village units and thereby classifies a place as Census Town, which is considered as the lowest unit of urbanization. Census also provides data about availability of basic amenities for the common citizens living in a place, but these data are not considered so far to judge urbanization. This paper intervenes at this juncture and focuses on construction of a Generalized Urbanization Index for all the village units of a particular block, which will be comprised of both the census criteria for being classified as a census town and the amenities available to that place. Cleary the index, thus constructed, will provide us an exhaustive idea of urbanization of a rural place and statistical techniques become crucial in determining the relative weights of different parameters related with urbanization.