Read the passage below and answer the following question.
The rapid growth in urbanisation shows that the town or city has been acting as a magnet for the rural population. People go to urban areas in search of work. Rural-to-urban migration has also been accelerated by the continuous decline of common property resources like ponds, forests and grazing lands. The city may also be preferred for social reasons, specially the relative anonymity it offers. It allows the poorer sections of the socially dominant rural groups to engage in low status work that they would not be able to do in the village. For the socially oppressed groups like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, this may offer some partial protection from the daily humiliation they may suffer in the village where everyone knows their caste identity. Mass transit and mass communication are bridging the gap between rural and urban areas. Today the rural areas are more closely integrated into the consumer market. Agriculture used to be by far the largest contributor of the country's total economic production. Today it contributes only about one-fourth of the gross domestic product. Rural people are increasingly engaged in non-farm rural occupations like transport services, business enterprises or craft manufacturing. If they are close enough, then they may travel daily to the nearest urban centre to work while continuing to live in the village.
The gap between rural and urban areas is bridged by:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Mass transit and mass communication
Option (3) Mass transit and mass communication — Correct. Mass transit lets rural people travel daily to the nearest urban centre to work while they go on living in the village. Mass communication brings images of urban life styles into the rural areas, so urban norms become well known even in remote villages.
NCERT (2025-26): “2.6 Rural-Urban Differences … Mass media and communication channels are now bringing images of urban life styles and patterns of consumption into the rural areas. Consequently, urban norms and standards are becoming well known even in the remote villages, creating new desires and aspirations for consumption. Mass transit and mass communication are bridging the gap between the rural and urban areas. Even in the past, the rural areas were never really beyond the reach of market forces and today they are being more closely integrated into the consumer market (The social role of markets will be discussed in Chapter 4).” |