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Social Structure and Social Change

Notes The resource base of the National Capital Region includes budgetary allocation through plan provision
and institution borrowing in the form of line of credit, priority sector loans from financial institutions
and market borrowings in the form of taxable and tax-free bonds as extra budgetary resources. The
Ninth plan provision for NCRPB was Rs.200 crore and during the Ninth plan the board has envisaged
Internal and External Budgetary resources of Rs.3120 crore, to be mobilised from the capital market.
The NCRPB has facilitated the development of infrastructure facilities in different cities of the region
including roads, bridges, water supply, sewerage disposal facilities etc
Impact of urbanisation on Indian rural scene

India, urbanisation along with westernisation and modernisation has furthered the process of rapid
social change both in the rural and in the urban areas. One of the important results of urbanisation is
the rural to urban migration. Migration has become a continuous process affecting the social, economic
and cultural lives of the villagers widely. Rao (1974) distinguishes three different situation of urban
impact in the rural areas. In the villages from where large numbers of people migrate to the far off
cities, urban employment becomes a symbol of higher social prestige. Villages, which are located
near the towns, receive influx of immigrant workers and face the problems of housing, marketing
and social ordering. Lastly, in the process of the growth of metropolitan cities some villages become
the rural-pockets in the city areas. Hence, the villagers directly participate in the economic, political,
social and cultural life of the city. Srinivas pointed out that urbanisation in southern India has a caste
component and that, it was the Brahmin who first left the village for the towns and took advantage of
western education and modern professions. At the same time as they retained their ancestral lands
they continued to be at the top of the rural socio-economic hierarchy. Again, in the urban areas they
had a near monopoly of all non-manual posts. However, the anti-Brahmin movement and the economic
depression of the nineteen thirties led to the migration of Brahmins from the south and rural areas to
metropolitan cities. As a result of migration there has been a flow of urban money into the rural
areas. Emigrants regularly send money to their native villages. Such money facilitates the dependants
to clear off loans, build houses and educate children. The urban centers of India have become the
centers of national and international linkages. At present, many cultural traits are diffused from
cities to the rural areas. For example, dress patterns like pants, shirts, ties, skirts, jeans etc. diffuse
from cities to the rural areas. Besides these, new thoughts, ideologies are also diffused from the cities
to the rural areas due to increase in communication via radio, television, newspaper, computer, the
Internet and telephone. The urbanism, which emerges in the cities gradually, reaches to the rural
areas, depending on their proximity to the cities.
The process of urbanisation has not been an isolated phenomenon. At present, along with the whole
gamut of occupational diversification, spread of literacy, education, and mass communication etc.,
continuity between rural and urban areas has increased. Urban jobs and other amenities of living
have become status symbols in the rural areas. Many modern techniques of agricultural development
and many of the institutional frameworks for rural development also generate from the urban centers.
The large-scale commercialisation of agriculture has also been facilitated by the process of urbanisation.
Similarly, agricultural requirements for machinery have generated the growth of manufacturing units
in urban areas.
Features of urban life
The following features are generally associated with urban life.
Formality and Impersonality of Human Relationships

urban areas prevents intimate and face-to-face contacts among all the members in the community. In
urban communities, people interact with each other for limited and specialised purposes, for example,
teachers and students in a classroom, buyers and sellers in a store and doctors and patients in clinics.
Urbanites do not usually come to know each other as ‘whole persons’, i.e., they are not usually
concerned with all aspects of a person’s life. Apart from their family members and friends they do
not normally interact with others, except for limited or specialised purposes. This feature among the
urban dwellers results in formal, impersonal, superficial, transitory, segmental and secondary contacts.

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