The Impact
Far too many people, particularly youth, from these rural areas are migrating to first and second-tier cities for fear that there is no future opportunity or earning capacity in villages for them to remain. This presents a significant burden on the cities, their infrastructure, resources and civic amenities, to wit:
- increase in demand for already woefully inadequate water and electricity
- pollution levels have reached catastrophic levels
- influx of humanity has worsened traffic jams, overcrowded transportation
- creates an overload on already poor drainage and disposal systems
- adds to the creation of slums and other temporary illegal colonies
- already overburdened civic authorities are inadequate to control the situation
- hospitals and health care centres are overburdened with patients
- the number of job seekers far exceeds the work available
- poor economic conditions often lead to increasing rates of crime
- land holdings are sold to developers, sometimes at a loss to farmers
- shortage of farmers and workers due to migration to the cities
- as more and more educated people are shifting to urban areas, the villages are suffering from a shortage of literate and advanced farmers
- resulting in India falling below set growth targets for 11th/12th Five Year Plans
