Urban trap

Fearing loss of autonomy and access to government schemes, several villages across India are protesting against the decision to change their status to town

- RAJU SAJWAN AND AMARPAL SINGH VERMA

THE CROWD gathers every morning, banners in hand, their voices echoing through the streets of Hanumangarh in Rajasthan. Their demand is simple: restore their villages to the rural status they once held. The people of Satipura and 2 Knj, two of the six villages incorporated into the Hanumangarh municipal council on January 10, 2025, are protesting almost daily against the state government's circular. For them, becoming “urban” is not a privilege but a crisis.

“We do not know how we will survive anymore,” says Jasram, a resident of Satipura. He and his wife have worked as daily-wage labourers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for 15 years. The scheme, which ensures 100 days of employment annually to rural households, has been their economic lifeline. But with the villages now designated as urban, MGNREGA will no longer apply, leaving over 3,100 families in the two villages without a guaranteed source of income. “Gram panchayats allocate significant funds to MGNREGA, making it the backbone of rural employment,” says Anshuman Karol, lead for governance and climate action at Delhi-based non-profit Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA). He says residents in villages sit for protest the moment they realise that they will no longer be beneficiaries to government schemes for rural areas. While Rajasthan is one of the few states in the country with an urban employment initiative—Mukhyamantri Shahri Rozgar Guarantee Yojana—it does not offer the same guarantee as MGNREGA.

“MGNREGA is a legal right, whereas the other is merely a scheme,” says Rajendran Narayanan, professor of economics at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru.