Critical Evaluation of Urban Population distribution of Maharashtra state in India

Abstract

Maharashtra is the second most populous state of India with 45.23% population urbanized(India, 2011). It is the third largest state in terms of area. Urban population is dispersed in 35 districts. The aim of this paper is to evaluate urban population distribution among towns and cities. It also checks whether the population is statistically normally distributed within the urban areas. The objective is to study the city/town size distribution for the state of Maharashtra, India based on 2011 Census.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

City size distribution is essential to understand the dynamism exhibited by the urban centers.(Benguigui & Blumenfeld-Lieberthal, 2007) . First such effort was made by Auerback for German cities. In his study double logarithmic graph paper was used (log P/log R) to plot the city size in terms of city's population and its rank.(Auerback, 1913). It gives 'S' shaped curvilinear trend. Pareto's principle (1913) and Zipf's law (1949) are other commonly used theories of city size distribution.

This paper examines city size distribution for the state of Maharashtra, India, based on Census of India data 2011. Objective of the study:To study the city/town size distribution for the state of Maharashtra, India, based on 2011 Census.

Maharashtra has population of 11.24 Crores according to 2011 Census. The population of Maharashtra forms 9.28 percent of India in 2011. The density of Maharashtra state is 365 persons per sq km. Maharashtra State is spread over 307,713 sq.km(India, 2011).It is the third-largest state by area. It is now home to the highest number of people living in urban areas. With an urban population of 45.23%, Maharashtra is third most urbanizedamong major states. It is the most industrialized state in the country and the state's capital, Mumbai is India's financial and commercial hub. 

The state has played an important part in the country's social and political living and widely taken into account as a first in terms of farming and to do with industry producing, trade and transport, and education. Maharashtra is one of the most developed and prosperous Indian states and continues to be the single largest contributor to the national economy with a share of 15% in the country's GDP. The economy of Maharashtra is the largest in India, with a gross state domestic product (GSDP) of ?28.78 trillion and has the country's 13th-highest GSDP per capita of ?207,727. Maharashtra is the fifteenth-highest ranking among Indian states in human development index.

According to Census 2011, Maharashtra has 35 districts, within which there are 355 Tehsils, 534 Towns, and 43,665 Villages. Maharashtra is divided into 6 administrative divisions; Konkan, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Amravati and Nagpur for administrative purposes.

Census definition of Town and Cities (2011)

(A) Statutory towns - All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc.

(B) Census towns - A minimum population of 5,000,

At least 75 per cent of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits;

Average density of 400 persons per sq. km

Table 1 Maharashtra State Urban Scenario (2011)

Greater Mumbai is the megacity in Maharashtra. Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik and Aurangabad are the five metropolitan cities in the state. The state consists of 35 Class I cities that have population more than 1,00,000. 49 Class II towns having population 50,000 to 99,999 , 156 Class III towns having population 20,000 to 49,999 , 125 Class IV towns having population 10,000 to 19,999 and 107 Class V towns having population 5000 to 9,999.

Table 2 Number of Cities in each Class

Normal distribution, also known as the Gaussian distribution, is a probability distribution that is symmetric about the mean, showing that data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence than data far from the mean. In graph form, normal distribution will appear as a bell curve.The standard normal distribution has two parameters: the mean and the standard deviation. For a normal distribution, 68% of the observations are within +/- one standard deviation of the mean, 95% are within +/- two standard deviations, and 99.7% are within +- three standard deviations.

II. METHODOLOGY

Census data of all the towns were collected from Census of India 2011 and cities/towns were sorted as per the population and class. Classification from Class I to Class V was done and then number of cities/towns was tabulated and descriptive analysis statistics, mean and standard deviation of each type of cities/towns were calculated. With standard deviation the percentage of cities lying within first standard deviation was calculated and checked whether it was within 68% or not.

Table 3 Cites lying in One, Two & Three Standard Deviation

Conclusion

Class I Cities are log normal distributed. Class II Cities are both log normal and normally distributed. Class III Cities shows normal distribution. Class IV Cities shows log normal distribution. Class V Cities are neither log normal distributed nor normally distributed. Urban Agglomeration Mumbai is the Primate city of the region, with a Primacy index of 3.63. Mumbai Urban Agglomeration accounts for 37% of total urban population of Maharashtra. 85.72% of Total Maharashtra population resides in top 20% of cities. We have analyzed the population distribution of cities/towns of Maharashtra based on 2011 Census. After 2021 Census is released relative change in the population of the cities can be further analyzed to check the population distribution in these classes of cities.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Smita Sunil Burrewar, Bijay Kumar Das. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.