It Could soon be curtains for the slogan that 70 per cent of India lives in villages. The government has acknowledged that India has urbanised far more than is usually reckoned.

So instead of pegging the urban population at a fraction less than 30 per cent (27.8 per cent as per Census 2001), the government is planning to rewrite the definition of a town. This could mean a substantial addition to the percentage of people who live in towns.

The government has decided to set up a National Urban Commission, the second such in independent India. According to Urban Development secretary M Ramachandran, the present definition of what makes an urban area is restrictive.

Census 2001 had identified two types of towns: statutory and Census. All areas with a municipality, corporation or a notified town area committee were statutory towns. Places with a minimum population of 5,000 with 75 per cent of working males engaged in non-agricultural sectors and a density of 400 people per sq m were Census towns.

The change will force not just the government to alter its economic policies but also require corporate India to strategise differently. Plan allocations and even grants for local level bodies would change. “Not only will this lead to reallocation of resources by companies, it will also change the profile of advertisers as well as the kind of product and services sold in the new urban areas identified,” said, Nandini Dias, chief operating officer, Lodestar Universal, a media buying/planning agency.

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