Rural urban linkages: A study around Nalhati municipality

The gradual transformation from rural areas to urban areas has been associated with complex dynamic forces. This has resulted in the growth and development of urban centres at the expanse of rural areas. It is now widely recognised that there exists an economic, social and environmental interdependence between urban and rural areas. Urban centers became regional market towns and the link between town and country is usually provided by transport. That’s why the rural urban linkages have become increasingly important in development literature in the field of urban environmental study. Rural-Urban linkages can be conceptualised as interaction across space (such as flow of people, goods, money, information and wastes) and linkage between sectors (for example, between agriculture, services and manufacturing). In broad term they also include rural activities taking place in urban centers (such as urban agriculture), an activities often classified as urban (such as manufacturing and services) taking place in rural settlement (IIED, 2009).  Nalhati was selected as study area which is a junction point and keeps its identity by connecting various places by railway network and state highway. Nalhati town itself has become a resource base and nodal transportation centre in the study area. The surrounding villages were selected taking distance from Nalhati municipality. The major objectives were to emphasize the crucial role played by transportation linkages in shaping such unique rural urban continuum and sectorial diversification in relation to spatial dimension and finally human environment specially their culture, their society and their infrastructural perception which had been greatly influenced by such type of rural urban linkages. The study showed variation among those villages away from Nalhati Municipality and tried to find out the reasons.