Land-Use Dynamics of Peri-Urban Areas of Metropolitan Cities with Special Focus on Delhi

Abstract

Post-reform period has experienced increased flow of investment towards development of infrastructure around the large metropolitan cities in India. This has led to expansion of urban centres over the peripheral land-use classes which include productive croplands. This study seeks to find out the extent of growth of urban areas in the periphery of seven largest metropolitan cities in India and consumption of farmland by the process, with a special focus on Delhi. A trend of growing urban area is evident around almost all the metropolitan cities in the post-reform period. Though the cultivable area around the metropolitan cities has decreased in the post-reform period, the increase in net sown area in those areas signify more judicial utilization of land in the post-reform period in the peripheries of large urban centres. Though the growth of built-up area around Delhi metropolis has not followed any set pattern targeting consumption of any specific kinds of land for its expansion, large tracts of cultivable lands have disappeared in the process, despite the fact that wastelands or unutilized land remain which could have been converted for urban-centric land use. It has also been argued in this study that impact of conversion is more in areas closer to the urban centres and vice versa. A significantly high degree of negative correlation exists between the built-up area and distance from the city centre of Delhi. The analysis reveals that this process has been fairly prominent around the metropolitan city of Delhi.