The cities in India have been a magnet for those who seek a better quality of life, but their uncontrolled growth has overflowed all infrastructure and has turned metropolis into difficult places to inhabit. In the Asian subcontinent, where 40% of the population will live in cities by 2036, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), faces a crucial challenge: to redistribute the population without stopping the development of the country.
In a column published in the deputy and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Indian Government, Karti P. Chidambaram, analyzes how India can learn from the strategies that have been launched countries such as Spain to revitalize their rural areas and stop the depopulation. The Spanish government has allocated 10,000 million euros to a plan that seeks to reactivate the rural economy, especially in those areas where the population has fallen more than 50% since 1950. The initiative, together with the teleworking boom, is attracting young professionals already families looking for a quieter and more affordable life away from the big cities.
India, who faces an accelerated urbanization rate, could replicate this model. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2036, 40% of the Indian population will live in cities, compared to 31% of 2011. This uncontrolled growth is saturating urban infrastructure and services, which has led Chidambaram to Pose bold solutions, such as reverse migration.
Teleworking, driven by Pandemia, has opened new possibilities. Professionals from sectors such as finance or technology no longer need to be physically in large metropolis to perform their work. This has allowed countries such as Japan, Ireland or the United States to encourage rural migration with financial aid, tax relief and subsidies. India could follow this example, but for this you must overcome several obstacles.
One of the main challenges, according to Chidambaram, is social perception. For many Indian families, success is linked to large cities, where elite universities and better paid job opportunities are concentrated. Changing this mentality requires not only to improve rural infrastructure – carreteras, electricity, water and connectivity – but also encourage local industries such as agriculture, crafts and textiles.
The agricultural sector, which employs 54.6% of the rural population according to the 2011 census, has enormous potential but is underutilized. The lack of modern infrastructure, such as cold chains or storage systems, causes annual losses of billions of rupees. Here, the private sector has a crucial role to play, since its investment in the rural world is currently minimal.
Chidambaram emphasizes that the future of India should not depend on overpopulated cities, but on dynamic and self -sufficient rural communities. To achieve this, it is essential that young talents – graduated from institutions such as the IIT or the IIM – the rural world as a space of opportunities. Only in this way can urban pressure be relieved and build a more balanced country.
