Overview
- The Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs reported that many settlements now behave like towns but remain governed as rural bodies and that its recommendations stop short of a national implementation plan.
- Geospatial work by the National Institute of Urban Affairs shows peripheral areas drove over 80% of built-up growth around 20 major cities between 2000 and 2020 and regional studies found hundreds of transitional settlements housing millions of people.
- Current Census Town rules are flawed because they rely on the test that 75% of male main workers are in non‑agricultural jobs and use revenue-area population density, measures that miss women’s work, mixed livelihoods and actual built-up form.
- Policy tools exist to act: the Sixteenth Finance Commission proposed a ₹10,000 crore Urbanisation Premium tied to state Rural‑to‑Urban Transition Policies and the committee recommended databases, 'Transition Units' and 'Visionary Towns' to coordinate change.
- The immediate priority is for states to adopt transition policies, use geospatial identification, and for MoHUA and the Ministry of Panchayati Raj to coordinate training, asset transfers and linked financing so services and governance change before notification.