Critically discuss the impact of urbanisation on children in India. (200 Words)
Urbanisation can be defined in two ways – Rural areas becoming urban and urban becoming more urban. The term urban means better infrastructure, services, facilities and opportunities in a broad manner. Urbanisation impacts the economy, polity, society, culture of the region, state and country. It affects all strata of the society. It’s effect of children is multidimensional with pros and cons.
Pros:
- Urbanisation provides children with more opportunities in different arenas such as cultural activities, sports tournaments, coaching centers etc.
- With Urbanisation, the quality of education may increase. This benefits children. But, most of the high quality schools are joined by elite children, hence their effect on the poorer sections is questionable.
- Urbanisation comes with more integration of the society due to better connectivity, social media awareness and media coverage. These help children become more aware about happening around the world and country.
- Urbanisation comes with better health facilities. Hence, the lower IMR and MMR in urban areas and high immunisation coverage. But again, this is not the case with urban poor.
Cons:
- Urbanisation is not Eco-friendly, at least presently. The high pollution levels in Delhi is a case in point. This will harm children’s health.
- Reports suggest Urbanisation has increased child labour. The migration of rural people into cities are vulnerable due to low economic and social conditions.
- General observation suggest that there is a depletion in playing areas for children due to growth in construction activity.
- Urbanisation is accompanied by growth of slums and unorganised colonies which are unhygeinic and have low sanitation thereby adversely affecting child health.
- Things like crime, delinquency, prostitution, human trafficking, child labor are common here.
On the whole, Urbanisation seems to benefit the affluent children and may even be disadvantages to the urban poor and rural migrants.