PLANNING FOR COMPREHENSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF * AZAMGARH DISTRICT, UTTAR PRADESH STATE

Abstract

India is agriculture based country. where more than two-third (68.8%) of the population resides in the rural areas. Agriculture accounts about 14% of GDP, about 11% of exports, and supports about half of the country's population as its principal source of income. In 2010-201 I, 12% of fruits and 14% of vegetables production of the world belonged to India, while contribution of livestock Sector in the National Economy was 3.6%. 'Al/tìgures as per NS'O-MoSPI, Go!) Besides this. people from rural areas are a majority in industries, labour force and private services. According to Saxena (1994), "In contemporary India the pure categories of 'rural' and 'urban' community can hardly be found out. There is hardly any village without a thin layer of urbanism and similarly hardly any urban centre without any tinge of ruralism." This is clearly visible to us in everyday life in India that the purely rural or purely urban areas are hard to find. It is found that the settlements, irrespective of the population size, do have the characteristics of rural as well as urban areas. India is a developing county, and for the country to develop as a whole it is important that the settlements develop as a whole. As discussed in the previous paragraph, the rural areas cannot be exclusively separated from the settlements. Although they are a part of a settlement that contains both urban-rural characteristics, but, the rural areas are the least developed areas dealing with problems of poverty, lack of infrastructure, issues relating to unemployment, and migration. Azamgarh is one such district having characteristics of both urban and rural areas having major population residing in rural region and thus can be called a rural district, and is under-developed. Planning for this under-developed region can help to improve the socio-econoinic conditions and create an environment conducive for growth.