TREND , OF URBANISATION IN ROORKEE AND ITS IMPACT ON ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Urbanisation is an important phenomenon which influences the life style of the people, their social customs and cultural heritage including economic and political setups. The process of urbanisation generally indicates a migration of the population from rural or smaller settlements to a larger settlement for various reasons. Development /Growth caused mainly by this influx demands large continuous input of resources to meet production and consumption needs; water, energy, other goods and materials Often observed haphazard growth and unbalanced use of natural resources destroys the natural. environment and depending upon the degree of degradation, life of the concerned inhabitants may be effected. In order to understand the trends of urbanisation a case study of Roorkee town has been taken up. Roorkee is locally said to derive its name from Ruri, the wife of a Rajput chieftain. It was a mere mud built village during British occupation having a population of 5,511 persons. It was raised from this obscure position by the construction of the Upper Ganges Canal and the establishment of Thomason college of civil Engineering. Later, Canal Workshop in 1852 and Bengal Sappers and minors in 1853 were stationed here. A steady yet moderate growth of the town continued till 1950, after which the Thomason college was raised to a status of a University and many other institutions were iii established like CBRI, IRI, NIH etc. This tremendous growth in mainly the institutional sector boost the general growth and development of other sectors as well as the town. During this process, a transformation in an earlier concentric zone compact grained settlement to a multiple nuclei based compact grained settlement was observed. A five fold increase in the population was seen to be associated with change in sex ratio, literacy ratio, medical facilities, infrastructural facilities, occupational status, financial receipts and expenditure and lastly the waste disposal site. The influence on temperature, rainfall and groundwater table was, though, visibly apparent yet did not statistically prove it to be significant. However, change in landuse pattern and magnitude of. resulting runbff was observed to be drastic. Viewing the system as an integral whole, comprising of all the variables together, its composite status was found to be generally in the acceptable range till date when analysed through Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique. Further, it was found to decline if trends of development continued the same way. However, a comparative study of few Development Options comprising different combinations of development alternatives was also conducted and they were ranked with respect to their suitability for the town . iv