Abstract: The change in municipal limits of statutory towns is done to bring geographical growth of towns under administrative limits in order to regulate the haphazard urban growth on the periphery of towns, to increase the municipal income by imposition of taxes on enterprises that come up outside the legal limits of urban centres and to facilitate the future growth of towns. With a rise in the number of municipal towns from 58 in 1961 to 79 in 2011 in Haryana, the area under them has increased from 319.39 km2 to 1499.84 km2. This represents an urban conversion of no less than 1180.45 km2 of rural land that finds its explanation in the extension of municipal limits of as many as 59 towns. This paper attempts to analyse statistically the explanatory variables of territorial expansion of statutory towns in Haryana. It has been hypothesized that changes in the municipal limits of statutory towns is associated with their population growth, administrative status, non-agricultural workforce and location in respect of major roads. The statistical analysis confirmed close association of the variable ‘change in territorial jurisdiction’ of a town with the variables of ‘connectivity’ and ‘administrative status’; a weak, positive but statistically non-significant correlation with ‘population growth’ and no association with the variable ‘economic base’ of a town. Permanent loss of fertile agricultural land, rural-urban conflicts and the inability to revise municipal limits frequently and preferably much beyond the present urban built up leading to chaotic land use are some of the consequences of changes in the municipal limits of statutory towns. The present paper is an attempt to meaningfully analyse the causes and consequence of changes in municipal limits of statutory towns in Haryana. It is based on census data from 1961-2011.
Keywords: municipal limits, statutory towns, geographical growth, haphazard urban growth, urban conversion, explanatory variables, population growth, administrative status, non-agricultural workforce, connectivity, rural-urban conflicts and chaotic land use.
Title: Changes in Jurisdictional Limits of Municipal Towns in Haryana: An Overview of Causes and Consequences
Author: Dr. Parul Rana
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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