The word urban underlies a basic theme. One that its population size is larger than its rural counterpart, two that its size is definitely larger and three that its functions are varied. Function is probably the most important criterion to define a town. The other criteria are population size and population density. Different countries have different parameters to explain an urban space. India has one too.
In India, the criteria for identifying urban places kept changing with time. The frequent changes in the criteria reflected the basic problem of identifying urban places and the issue could not be settled till 1981.
In India, urban areas are given different administrative status by different state governments. The conferring of this status depends on the state-level Municipal and Local Bodies Acts. A place has to satisfy all the three Census criteria in order to be designated as an urban place even if the requirements are criticised by some to be vague, rigid and conservative.
| The 1981 Census defined an urban place as: |
| (A) a place with a municipality, corporation, or cantonment, or notified town area |
| (B) any other place which satisfied all the following criteria:(i) a minimum population of 5,000; (ii) at least 75 per cent of the male working population engaged in non-agricultural; and, (iii) a density of population of at least 400 per square kilometre or 1,000 persons per square mile. |
At present, we have 35 million cities (2001 census) in India and 27.8 percent of our people live in the towns and cities.
Many eminent scholars have studied the intricacies of a city and have proposed some unique findings. It was J. Gottman who first coined the term Megalopolis. This city was envisaged to have a population size over 35 million people. G. Sjoberg in his book ‘The Pre-Industrial City’ examined the structure of urban settlements both in Europe and elsewhere in the world, prior to the impact of large-scale industrialization. Then there were many more like Harvey, Peet, Pred etc. who went to make our understanding of cities more lucid.
| The Eminent Titles |
| J. Gottman, Megalopolis: The Urbanized North-eastern Seaboard of the United States, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1961. |
| G. Sjoberg, The Pre-Industrial City, Past and Present, The Free Press, New York, 1960. |
Building a city isn’t an easy job. The site factors have to be taken into account so that the city is provided with its basic amenities. Then comes several others factors that depend upon what the city’s basic function is to be.
Administrative Towns
These towns include, capital cities of nations, provinces, district and other administrative units.
Example: Delhi, Chandigarh.
Defence Towns
Most countries maintain Armies, Navies and Air forces for the defence. Such towns generally have barracks and training facilities for the armed forces.
Example: Jalandhar, Jodhpur and Jammu.
Cultural Centres
Many towns have cultural functions such as the provisions for education, art galleries or religious buildings, pilgrimage centre, and more.
Example:
- Shantiniketan, Pantnagar etc. are educational towns.
- Bombay and Pune etc. film centers.
- Lhasa, once the seat of the Dalai Lama of Tibet.
- Banaras, Hardwar, Ajmer etc. pilgrimage centers.
Collection Centres
Mining Towns, fishing Ports and Lumbering Centres are included in collection centres:
Examples:
- Mining Towns— Raniganj and Jharia.
- Fishing Ports — Calicut, Cochin and Pondicherry.
- Lumbering Towns: Papernagar, Kathgodam, Haldwani.
Commercial Town
Business houses, Banks, Insurance Companies and other financial organisations are included in it. It mainly includes those related to trading, retailing and commercial services.
Examples: Muzaffarpur (in Bihar), Nagpur, Bhopal, Kanpur etc.
Market Towns
These are places where exchanges of goods take place i.e collection and distribution. They mainly include large business markets or mandis besides, a wide range of shops,stores,warehouses and godowns, supported by a well knit network of transport facilities.
Examples: Ludhiana, Tirupur.
Resort Towns
These are located in favourable geographical surroundings basically recreational pleasant places to live in. It has hotels, guest houses, film theatres, night clubs, amusement parks, shopping centres etc.
Examples:
- Coastal Resorts with sea-side recreational facilities for water sports such as Goa, Kanya kumari, Allepey;
- Hill Resorts provide scenic beauty, cool climate and adventurous and thrilling sports i.e. trekking, skiing etc. such as Darjeeling, Auli, Shimla etc.; and,
- Health Resorts mainly based on health-giving waters somewhat like health spa such as Manikaran, and favourable climate in Ranikhet, Kasauni etc.
Residential Towns
These are mainly modern towns with all facilities for healthy, good and comfortable life away from congested and polluted cities. These are often well planned and located in a neat and healthy milieu.
Example: Chandigarh, Salt Lake City (Kolkata)
Last but not the least; a mention must be made of the shanty town and slums, a product of the accelerating urbanization process. It is a district of temporary, generally overcrowded, lacking in amenities and characterized by a high incidence of disease, extreme poverty and more.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.