Indian geography

 
The definition of function varies across the disciplines. In political science it refers to duties, in mathematics it means the relationship between two variables and in geography it is synonymous to occupation.

Geographers have classified towns on the basis of their site, situation, size, rank, location and relative elevation. Functional classification of towns attempts to categorize towns and cities according to their economic functions, thereby identifying their roles within urban systems. Most classifications use employment and occupational data. In the functional classification approach, towns are classified on the basis of their dominant function. The functional classification of towns has been illus­trated in the following paras:

1.)Administrative town

The main function of administrative cities and towns is to administer the country/state or a specific territory.It includes not only the capital cities of countries, but all the centres of provinces, states, districts and other administrative divisions of the country.

2.Defensive Towns:

During the medieval period, most of the towns and cities used to be developed on the defensive sites.Forts and garrisons used to be constructed at strategic places. The defensive towns have barracks, cantonments, and training facilities for the armed forces, airfields, and harbours for warships.Visakhapatnam, MHOW and Khadakwasla (India);

In many garrison and defensive towns, there is a clear division of land use between the civil and military authorities, so that the military installa­tions are often at a little distance from the town or are grouped together in one part of the town. This is necessary to maintain security, though often many town people are employed by the military.

3.Cultural Centres:

There are numerous towns and cities in the world, almost in each of the countries, which perform cultural functions.The cities of Oxford and Cambridge in England are the most suitable examples of educational towns. In these towns, one may find colleges, libraries, hostels, churches, playgrounds, parks and shopping centres. The environmental pollution in these towns is almost insignificant.

4.) Collection Centres:

The mining towns, fishing ports and lumbering centres fall under the category of collection centres/towns. There are numerous metallic, non-metallics, precious stones and energy resources which are obtained from mines.The towns which serve these mines may be small settlements serving a particular mine such as Zawar near Udaipur (Rajasthan), Bjiladela (Madhya Pradesh) and Digboi (Assam).They may be large in size such as Raniganj, Hazaribagh (Bihar), Ipoh in the tin rich Kinta valley of Malaysia, or Kuwait and Abadan in the oil producing regions of Kuwait and Tehran, respectively.Such towns may have some industries related to the mineral mines, such as smelters and refineries. The shops in such towns sell mining equipments and special clothes needed for miners.

5.) Production Centres:

Urban places, town and cities in which some kind of manufacturing industry is the major function is known as a production centre. The size and appearance of the town are affected by the type of industry located there.

• For example, Jamshedpur, Rourkela, Bhilai, Durgapur, Dhanbad and Bhadravati in India, Pittsburgh in USA, Magnitogorsk in Russia and Birmingham in UK are dominated by large steel plants. Such iron and steel producing towns are generally located near the coal fields.
• For the manufacturing towns, as collecting centres, transportation is very important for the transport of raw materials and the finished goods. These days such towns are generally set up on lines of communication.

In manufacturing towns, there is a segregation of houses and estab­lishments; the officer’s quarters may be grouped at one place and that of the labourers at the other.

6.) Towns of Diversified Functions:

As stated at the outset, towns are classified according to their major functions. So, all those towns (such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, etc.) can be put into a definite category in which a large number of activities are conducted. Such towns are referred as diversified in functions.

Over space and time, the functions of towns change. For example, defensive sites often become restrictive when the town expands.Thus, many towns have restricted centres which were once confined within the town walls and more extensive suburbs which grew up outside the walls or after the walls were demolished.

Shahjahanabad (old Delhi), Padova (Italy), Lahore and Rawalpindi (Pakistan), Baghdad (Iraq) and Baku (Azerbaijan) are some of the examples of such towns.

7.)Residential Towns:

In some towns, the chief function is simply to house a concentration of population. In such areas, most of the land is devoted to houses, parks and hospitals. These towns are very- well-connected with the major cities, which enables the commuters to get to work each day.

8.  Resorts:

The urban places which cater to the recreation needs of people are known as resorts or recreation towns.These urban places may be based on health-giving water (hot springs), seaside recreation, mountain climbing, cultural attractions, historical monuments, sports facilities, national parks and attractive scenery.Resorts and recreational towns have many hotels to accommodate visitors, and also provide sporting facilities such as golf courses, swimming pools, trekking and skiing. Moreover, they have numerous entertainment facilities, such as theatres, cinemas, and night clubs and children parks.

9. Transfer and Distribution Centres:

The main functions performed at transfer centres are the trade, commerce and services. Towns which are concerned with the transfer and distribution of goods, however, have trade as their major function.

They include several types of towns. For example, market towns, sea ports and financial towns.Market towns are characterized by markets, a wide range of shops, stores, warehouses, godowns, cold storages and wholesale .markets.Market towns also have banks, insurance companies and other financial organizations. Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Indore, Bhopal, Patna, Lucknow, Ludhiana and Hapur in India, Norwich in England, Alexandria in Egypt, and Kumasi in Ghana are some of the examples of such towns.

Problem of Human settlement:

Some of the major problems of urbanisation in India are

1. Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl or real expansion of the cities, both in population and geographical area, of rapidly growing cities is the root cause of urban problems. In most cities the economic base is incapable of dealing with the problems created by their excessive size

1. Overcrowding

Overcrowding is a situation in which too many people live in too little space. Overcrowding is a logical consequence of over-population in urban areas. It is naturally expected that cities having a large size of population squeezed in a small space must suffer from overcrowding. This is well exhibited by almost all the big cities of India.

3.Slums and Squatter Settlements:

The natural sequel of unchecked, unplanned and haphazard growth of urban areas is the growth and spread of slums and squatter settlements which present a striking feature in the ecological structure of Indian cities, especially of metropolitan centres.

4.)Overcrowding

Overcrowding leads to a chronic problem of shortage of houses in urban areas. This problem is specifically more acute in those urban areas where there is large influx of unemployed or underemployed immigrants who have no place to live in when they enter cities/towns from the surrounding areas.

5.)Seweage problem

Urban areas in India are almost invariably plagued with insufficient and inefficient sewage facilities. Not a single city in India is fully sewered. Resource crunch faced by the municipalities and unauthorised growth of the cities are two major causes of this pathetic state of affairs.

According to FAO Food Security  is “a situation in which all people at all times have access to adequate quantities of safe and nutritious food to lead a healthy and active life”.

This definition requires three basic conditions to be met:

1) adequacy, i.e. supplies from domestic production, stocks and imports are sufficient to meet the nation’s needs,

2) availability i.e. stability of supply both spatially and temporally throughout the year and

3) access, i.e. the population has sufficient purchasing power to gain access to its food needs.

India is one of the few countries which have experimented with a broad spectrum of programmes for improving food security. It has already made substantial progress in terms of overcoming transient food insecurity by giving priority to self-sufficiency in foodgrains and through procurement and public distribution of foodgrains, employment programmes, etc. However, despite a significant reduction in the incidence of poverty chronic food insecurity persists in a large proportion of India’s population.

The range of adverse events, including reduced freshwater availability and more frequent extreme weather events, will considerably increase the risks for more efficient crop production and livestock management. Climate change is also likely to affect soil quality by depleting organic matter – a major contributor to soil fertility. In extreme cases, the degradation of the agricultural ecosystems could mean desertification, resulting in a total loss of the productive capacity of the land in question.

Food security is a multidimensional concept covering even the  micro level household food security,energy intakes and indicators of malnutrition.

Major components of food security are:-

1. Production and Procurement
2. Storage
3. Distribution

Indian Agriculture is rightly called as a gamble with Monsoon, variability in food production and rising population creates food insecurity in the nation and worst effected are the downtrodden section of the society.

While India has seen impressive economic growth in recent years, the country still struggles with widespread poverty and hunger. India’s poor population amounts to more than 300 million people, with almost 30 percent of India’s rural population living in poverty. The good news is, poverty has been on the decline in recent years. According to official government of India estimates, poverty declined from 37.2% in 2004-05 to 29.8% in 2009-10.

Need for Self-Sufficiency:

India suffered two very severe droughts in 1965 and 1966. Food Aid to India was restricted to a monthly basis by USA under the P.L. 480 programme.  The Green Revolution made a significant change in the scene. India achieved self-sufficiency in food grains by the year 1976 through the implementation of the seed- water-fertilizer policy adopted by the Government of India.

Food grain production increased four-fold during 1950-51 and 2001-2002 from 51 million tons to 212 million tones. The country is no longer exposed to real famines. But the regional variation in the success of Green Revolution which was chiefly limited to northern- Western states has lead to the divide in the nation. Evergreen revoloution and Bringing green revolution to eastern India is the need of the hour.

Green revolution was focused on wheat and rice and thus the production of pulses was stagnant.

National Food Security Mission comprising rice, wheat and pulses to increase the production of rice by 10 million tons, wheat by 8 million tons and pulses by 2 million tons by the end of the Eleventh Plan (2011-12). The Mission is being continued during 12th Five Year Plan with new targets of additional production of food grains of 25 million tons of food grains comprising of 10 million tons rice, 8 million tons of wheat, 4 million tons of pulses and 3 million tons of coarse cereals by the end of 12th Five Year Plan.
The National Food Security Mission (NFSM) during the 12th Five Year Plan will have five components

(i) NFSM- Rice;

(ii) NFSM-Wheat;

(iii) NFSM-Pulses,

(iv) NFSM-Coarse cereals and

(v) NFSM-Commercial Crops.

Government through Public Distribution System has tried to counter the problem of food insecurity by providing the food grains through fair price shops.

The central Government through Food Corporation of India has assumed the responsibilities of  procurement,storage,transfer and bulk allocation of food grains to state governments.

The public distribution system (PDS) has played an important role in attaining higher levels of the household food security and completely eliminating the threats of famines from the face of the country, it will be in the fitness of things that its evolution, working and efficacy are examined in some details.

PDS was initiated as a deliberate social policy of the government with the objectives of:

1. i) Providing foodgrains and other essential items to vulnerable sections of the society at resonable (subsidised) prices;
2. ii) to have a moderating influence on the open market prices of cereals, the distribution of which constitutes a fairly big share of the total marketable surplus; and

iii) to attempt socialisation in the matter of distribution of essential commodities.

The focus of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) is on “poor in all areas” and TPDS involves issue of     35 Kg of food grains per family per month for the population Below Poverty Line (BPL) at specially subsidized prices. The TPDS requires the states to Formulate and implement :-

1. foolproof arrangements for identification of poor,
2. Effective delivery of food grains to Fair Price Shops (FPSs)

Its distribution in a transparent and accountable manner at the FPS level

Petroleum, natural gas, coal, nitrogen, uranium and water power are examples of conventional sources of energy. They’re also called non-renewable sources of energy and are mainly fossil fuels, except water power.

Rising growth of population has created a tremendous pressure on the conventional resources of energy and thus the concept of sustainable development get prominent position.

Coal in India occurs in two important types of coal fields. They are the Gondwana coal fields and Tertiary coal fields. Out of the total coal   reserves and production in India, Gondwana coal fields contribute 98% and the rest 2% is produced by tertiary coal fields.

• The Gondwana coal fields are located in the sedimentary rock systems of lower Gondwana Age. They are distributed chiefly in the valleys of the Damodar (Bihar – West Bengal); the Son (Madhya Pradesh); the Mahanadi (Orissa), the Godavari (Andhra Pradesh) and the Wardha (Maharashtra).
• Tetiary coalfields occur in the extra-peninsular areas which include Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Sikkim

Most of the petroleum occurrences in India are associated with anticlines and fault traps in the rock formations of the tertiary age. In regions of folding, anticlines or domes, it occurs where oil is trapped in the crest of the upfold. The oil bearing layer is a porous limestone or sandstone through which oil may flow. The oil is prevented from rising or sinking by intervening non-porous layers.

Petroleum is also found in fault traps between porous and non-porous rocks. Gas, being lighter usually occurs above the oil. About 63 per cent of India’s petroleum production is from Mumbai High, 18 per cent from Gujarat and 16 per cent from Assam.

•  In India, uranium is embedded in the igneous and metamorphic rocks in Bihar, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and some parts of Himalayas. It occurs in igneous rocks of Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. A substantial source of uranium deposits is also found in the monazite sands along the Kerala coasts.
• In Jaduguda, Jharkhand uranium occurs associated with hard compact and somewhat mylonitised chlorite-sericite schist and granular metasedimentaries. Indicated ore reserves at Jaduguda have been estimated at 2.8 Mt with an average grade of about 0.08% uranium oxide. Uranium is found associated with copper mineralisation in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand and Lalitpur district, Uttar Pradesh.

Mazor Atomic Minerals are:

1. Uranium
2. Monazite
3. Ilmenite
4. Rutile
5. Zircon

Thorium is principally obtained from monazite. The beach sands of Kerala in Palghat and Quilon district contain the world’s richest monazite deposits. It also occurs on the sands of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Development of non-conventional sources of energy is of prime importance for the sustainable and inclusive growth in the state. Conventional energy resources are depleting at an accelerated rate and non-conventional resources could play a leading role in energy security in the state.

Non-Conventional energy resources could minimise the transmission cost and energy divide between the remote locations

• Indian has a unique geographical location in the tropical climate which enables it with high solar radiation intensity throughout the year.
• Solar radiation which we receive as heat and light can be converted to useful thermal energy or for production of electricity either through solar photovoltaic route or through solar thermal route.
• Sky is clear with abundant sunlight for about 300 days a year
• Solar insulation is greater than 4-7 kwh per square per metre per day for the nation.
• solar energy could be used as heat energy or could be converted into electricity through photovoltic cells
• National Solar Mission

• Wind can be used as a source of energy in those regions where strong and constant winds blow throughout the year. Wind energy can be used for pumping water for irrigation and also for generating electricity. India has about 45,000MW estimated wind power potential. Prospective sites for generating electricity wind have been located in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. The potential that can be tapped at present is limited to around 13,000 MW. But at present 2,483MW is generated through wind which places India in the fifth position globally after Germany, USA, Denmark and Spain.

Hydroelectricity is electricity that is made by the movement of water. It is usually made with dams that block a river to make a reservoir or collect water that is pumped there. When the water is released, the huge pressure behind the dam forces the water down pipes that lead to a turbine.

The rivers originating from the northern mountainous region are the most important source of the generation of Hydroelectricity . They have their sources in glaciers and snowfields, therefore, they are perennial and their flow of water is regular throughout the year. Velocity of flow is high because of dissected terrain and the competition for use of water for other purposes is low.

The northeastern part of this mountainous region, constituting the Brahmaputra basin, has the largest power generating potential. The Indus basin in the northwest is at second place. The Himalayan tributaries of the Ganga have a potential of 11,000 MW. Thus, three-fourths of the total potential is confined in the river basins originating from the northern mountainous region.

The rivers of peninsular India are comparatively poor in this respect. They depend entirely on the rainfall for their flow, and therefore, their flow is very erratic exceptionally high flow during the monsoon period fol1owed by a long period of lean flow

Urban morphology is the study of the form of human settlements and the process of their formation and transformation.Morphological studies often deal with development of forms and
pattern of the present city or other urban areas through time.

Urban morphology is the study of the physical form of a city, which consists of street patterns, building sizes and shapes, architecture, population density and patterns of residential, commercial, industrial and other uses, among other things. Special attention is given to how the physical form of a city changes over time and to how different cities compare with each other.

India exhibits a very stable settlement structure such that much of the urban growth that has occurred has been because of the accretion to existing towns and settlements and only marginally because of the emergence of new towns. As a result, the proportion of urban population residing in towns above a certain population cut-off point continues to increase, but there is little evidence of correlation between city size and rates of population growth.

In other words we can state that the development of new urban centers in India has been minimal and the urban growth has been accredited to the development of existing centers.

Prof. E. Ahmad has identified some of the components of urban morphology as site characteristics, historical background, sky-line, green open spaces, and water bodies, physical and cultural dominants.

For the Census of India 2011, the definition of urban area is as follows;

1. All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc.
2. All other places which satisfied the following criteria: i) A minimum population of 5,000; ii) At least 75 per cent of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and iii) A density of population of at least 400 persons per sq. km.

Urban centres of India are of 4 types:
1. Those that have grown from ancient town and villages e.g. Varansi, Madurai, Patna

2. Those that have grown from medieval towns such as Lucknow, Delhi, Jaipur. These towns have lot of features of medieval Islamic architecture with palaces, minarates, walled city with Meena bazaars.
3. Cities that have grown from the British administrative centres. Most of them were medieval towns or cantonment areas which retain lot of features of European Victorial architecture.
4. During the post independence period a number of planned cities have been developed. Chandigarh, Bhuvneshwar, Gandhinagar, Dispur and Bokaro are some of the typical examples of planned cities.

City is a complex agglomeration of multiple activities – economic, social, cultural, etc. Its ‘central area’ also known as Central Business District is its distinct section which is identified as the centre of marketing, business and financial activities as well as dense built-up sector where lines of transportation converge from various parts and nearly from all direction.

Settlement can be defined as any form of human habitation which ranges from a single dwelling to large city. The word settlement has another connotation as well as this is a process of opening up and settling of a previously uninhabited area by the people. In geography this process is also known as occupancy.

Settlements can broadly be divided into two types – rural and urban. Before discussing about meaning and types of rural and urban settlement in India, we should know some basic differences between rural and urban areas in general. (i) The major difference between rural and urban areas is the function. Rural areas have predominantly primary activities, whereas urban areas have domination of secondary and tertiary activities. (ii) Generally the rural areas have low density of population than urban.

Types of Rural Settlements:

Geographers have suggested various schemes of classification. If we group settlements found all over the country, these can broadly be grouped under four categories:

1. Compact/clustered/nucleated settlement
2. Semi-compact/Semi-clustered/fragmented settlement
3. Hemleted settlement
4. Dispersed settlement

Compact Settlements:

• As the name suggests, these settlements have closely built up area. Therefore in such settlements all the dwellings are concentrated in one central sites and these inhabited area is distinct and separated from the farms and pastures.
• Maximum settlements of our country comes under this category. They are spread over almost every part of the country.
• These settlements are distributed over the entire northern Indo-Ganga plain (from Punjab in the north-west to West Bengal in the east), Orissa coast, basins of Mahanadi in Chhattisgarh, coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh, cauvery delta of Tamil Nadu, Maidaus of Karnataka, lower Assam and Tripura, in the valleys of Siwaliks etc.
• Sometimes people live in compact settlement for security or defence purpose. The greatest example of this type is in Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
• In Rajasthan also people live in compact settlement because of the scarce availability of cultivable land and water body. Therefore, they want to make maximum use of available natural resources.

Semi compact Settlement:

As the name suggests, the dwellings or houses are not well-knitted. Such settlements are characterized by a small but compact nuclears around which hamlets are dispersed.

• It covers more area than the compact settlements.
• These settlements are found both in plains and plateaus depending upon the environmental conditions prevailing in that area.
• Such settlements are situated along streams in Manipur Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, and Rajgarh district of Chhattisgarh. Different tribal groups inhabit such settlements in the Chhota Nagpur region. In Nagaland, such settlements may be in the form of blushing villages.

Hamleted Settlements:

These type of settlements, are fragmented into several small units. The main settlement does not have much influence on the other units. Very often the original site is not easily distinguishable and these hamlets are often spread over the area with intervening fields. This segregation is often influenced by social and ethnic factors. The hamlets are locally named as faliya, para, dhana, dhani, nanglay etc. These settlements are generally found in West Bengal, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and coastal plains. Geographically it covers lower Ganga plain, lower valleys of the Himalayas and central plateau or upland region of the country.

 Dispersed Settlements:

This is also known as isolated settlements. Here the settlement is characterized by units of small size which may consist of a single house to a small group of houses. It varies from two to seven huts. Therefore, in this type, hamlets are scattered over a vast area and does not have any specific pattern. Such type of settlements are found in tribal areas of central part of India covering Chhota Nagpur plateau, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, etc. Such patterns are also common in the hills of north Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

There are three factors that influence the type of settlements in India. These factors are (i) Physical (ii) Ethnic or cultural and (iii) Historical or defence. Let us discuss these factors one by one.

Physical Factors:

These include relief, altitude, soil capability, climate, drainage, ground water level, etc. These factors influence the type and spacing of dwelling or instance, in dry regions of Rajasthan, water is a crucial factor and, therefore, houses are situated along a pond or well which guides the compactness of the settlement.

Ethnic and Cultural Factors:

These include aspects like caste, community, ethnicity and religion. In India it is commonly found that the main land owning caste resides at the centre of the village and the other service providing castes on the periphery. This leads to social segregation and fragmentation of a settlement into several units

Historical or Defence Factors:

In the past, mostly border areas of northwestern plains were conquered or attacked frequently by outsiders. For a long time, apart from attack from outsiders, there had been continuous fight between princely states and kingdom within the country therefore, security concerns favoured the evolution of nucleated settlements.

Type of urban settlement:

Like rural settlements, urban settlements are classified on various bases. However, classification based on size and function are most common. Let us discuss them one by one

Classification based on Population Size

According to population size, census of India classifies urban centres into six classes. Classwise urban settlements and their population

Class                              Population

Class I                            1,00,000 and above

Class II                          50,000 – 99,999

Class III                          20,000 – 49,999

Class IV                          10,000 – 19,999

Class V                            5,000 – 9,999

Class VI                          less than 5,000

There is another classification of urban settlements. The classification is as follows:

Town                                   Places which have less than one lakh population

City                                     Urban centres having population between one lakh to one million.

Metropolitan Cities          Cities having population in between one million to five million

Mega cities                         Cities having more than 5 million population