Rural to urban migration has the following impacts.

(A) Increases hardship in rural areas because of limited cash income.
(B) Lack of access to common resources because of private property.
(C) Old people are left in villages.
(D) New industries are set up in the villages.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

(A), (B), (C) only

The correct answer is Option (1) - (A), (B), (C) only

(A) Increases hardship in rural areas because of limited cash income: The rapid growth in urbanisation shows that the town or city has been acting as a magnet for the rural population. Those who cannot find work (or sufficient work) in the rural areas go to the city in search of work. This flow of rural-to- urban migration has also been accelerated by the continuous decline of common property resources like ponds, forests and grazing lands (B). These common resources enabled poor people to survive in the villages although they owned little or no land. Now, these resources have been turned into private property, or they are exhausted (Ponds may run dry or no longer provide enough fish; forests may have been cut down and have vanished…). If people no longer have access to these resources, but on the other hand have to buy many things in the market that they used to get free (like fuel, fodder or supplementary food items), then their hardship increases. This hardship is worsened by the fact that opportunities for earning cash income are limited in the villages (B).

(C) Old people are left in villages: Rural to urban migration often involves younger individuals seeking better opportunities in urban areas, leaving older people behind in villages, which can affect the demographic composition of rural communities.

(D) New industries are set up in the villages: this is not a direct and universal consequence of rural-to-urban migration