Census Town Definition Outdated, Ministry Tells House Panel
The Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has told a parliamentary panel that the decades-old Census town criteria fail to capture India's urbanisation.
The criteria used to classify settlements as towns in the Census are no longer adequate to capture how India is urbanising, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has told a parliamentary committee.
The definition, in use for about four decades, does not reflect economic transformation, the country's regional diversity or the growth of peri-urban areas, the ministry said. These gaps, it argued, mean the current framework struggles to keep pace with the way settlements actually develop and change.
The ministry's assessment came in response to the panel's examination of the issue. In its recommendations, the parliamentary committee called for broader consultations before any future criteria are finalised, suggesting that a wider set of stakeholders should be involved in shaping how towns are defined.
The exchange points to a larger question of how India measures its urban population. The Census town classification determines which settlements are counted as urban, influencing how policy, planning and resources are directed. With economic activity and settlement patterns shifting since the existing rules were framed, the ministry's submission indicates that the present approach may understate or misread the extent of urbanisation.
The panel's push for wider consultations signals that any revision is likely to be deliberative, with inputs sought beyond the government before new criteria are adopted.