Basic Service Provisioning in Peri-urban India: A Regional Perspective from Kolkata Metropolis

Abstract

In the globalising world, rapid urbanisation and expansion of cities trigger complex interactions with the surrounding rural areas and transform them into peri-urban areas. The peri-urban transitional spaces around cities experience rapid population growth and occupational diversification. However, they suffer from poor infrastructure and service provisions and the living condition has also been deteriorating over time with increasing population pressure. This article tries to explore accessibility to basic services in the transitional interfaces in comparison with the urban core and rural counterparts, taking Kolkata metropolis as a case. Using village level household information obtained from Census 2011, a composite amenity index by principal component analysis and one-way analysis of variance have been used to assess the status of services. The study finds that the condition of basic service provisions in peri-urban areas is unsatisfactory and far behind from the urban areas. It therefore resembles the hypothesis of “degenerated periphery” that the expansion of cities creates peripheries without basic civic amenities and infrastructural facilities necessary for its residents for maintaining the standard of living.

Keywords

Urbanisation peri-urban areas civic amenities service provisioning Kolkata metropolis

Introduction

In the regime of globalisation, cities and metropolitan regions have been emerging as focal points of economic growth throughout the world (World Bank, 2009). The cities are considered as “engines of growth” and city-centric growth strategies have been adopted for dispersal of regional development (Kennedy, 2007; Kennedy & Zérah, 2008). Therefore, the large cities in the past few decades are experiencing rapid growth in terms of population as well as physical environment. The expansion of cities beyond their municipal boundaries triggers complex interactions with the surrounding rural areas transforming their land use and occupation and subsequently results in the formation of rural–urban fringe or most popularly known as peri-urban areas around cities (Shaw, 2005).

Peri-urban areas are in transition from rural to urban economies and having the characteristics of both rural and urban areas (Adell, 1999). These spaces, lying outside the municipal boundaries, are very dynamic and acquire complexities with time. They are undergoing continuous changes in terms of land-use, economic condition, occupation-structure, population characteristics and social systems as well (Narain et al., 2013; Shaw, 2015). These transitional zones have emerged as attractive economic spaces for industries and development activities because of their locational advantage, improved transport network with the city and relatively cheap land (Dupont, 2005; Narain et al., 2013; Shaw, 2005; Tacoli, 2003). Peri-urbanisation thus brings job opportunities in the emerging non-agricultural sectors, expands services and trade and many other facilities in these spaces (Lanjouw et al., 2001; Mandere et al., 2010; Tuyen, 2014). Therefore, these spaces have become attractive sites for migrants. People consider the peri-urban areas as the best living places which entitle them the “benefits of both the urban and rural areas” (Mahavir, 2011; Sridharan, 2011). They can utilise some of the urban facilities along with rural lifestyle. Shaw (2015), in her study, finds that the transitional areas beyond the city boundaries experience rapid population growth owing to this dynamic nature, while the core of the city is by and large stagnating.

Although the population in peri-urban areas is uninterruptedly increasing, the quality of development and the status of basic services and infrastructural facilities do not commensurate with the population growth in these spaces. The living condition in these spaces has been deteriorating over time. In terms of basic services and infrastructural facilities, these areas face acute problems, sometimes even worse than that of the rural counterparts (Dahiya, 2003a, 2003b; Shaw, 2005). As Dahiya (2003a) observes, with increasing population pressure in the transitional areas around cities, the services, such as water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, drainage facility, street lighting, etc., remain mostly inadequate. The solid wastes are dumped here and there in these transient areas due to lack of any provision of solid waste management system (Shaw, 2005). Although peri-urbanisation opens up diversified employment opportunities for people, it is accompanied by poor living condition and pitiable public health. As Shaw (2005) observes, the peri-urban expansion around metropolitan cities is “threatening the quality of life of these transformation zones.” It is argued that urban expansion is making a kind of “degenerated periphery” around cities without adequate civic amenities and infrastructural services necessary for standard living of its residents (Kundu, 2003, 2012; Kundu et al., 2002). There is, therefore, a need for peri-urban research addressing this issue of infrastructure and service provisions in transitional areas.

In this context, the overarching question is that given the larger context of urban expansion, does peri-urbanisation around cities provide a quality of development in the transient peri-urban areas or expose them to new vulnerability? This article tries to assess the quality of development in terms of access to basic household amenities in the transitional interfaces of Kolkata Metropolis in comparison with the urban core and rural counterparts. This article is organised into nine sections. First section introduces the issues of peri-urban areas and states the rationale of this study. A brief description of study area is provided in the second section and the materials and methods used for analysis are explained in the subsequent section. The fourth section presents the complexities and processes related to identification of peri-urban areas. The fifth and sixth sections explore the condition of basic household amenities in peri-urban zones of Kolkata metropolis. The gaps in accessibility to service provisions across the regions – urban, peri-urban and rural area have been highlighted in the seventh and eighth sections. The last section summarises major findings and arguments of this article and draws on the future scope of research.

Study Area

Kolkata metropolis is the third-largest urban agglomeration in India, after Mumbai and Delhi and the largest in eastern India. According to Census of India 2011, as many as 14.2 million people live in this gigantic metropolis with diversified culture, religion, art and language. The Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) extends over 1851.41 sq. km including four Municipal Corporation, 39 Municipalities, one Cantonment Board and several Gram Panchayat (GP) areas. The city stretches north-south direction on the banks of Hugli River. However, almost 70% population is concentrated on the eastern side of the river; most of the large cities including Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) are located on this side as well. The metropolitan city has vibrant interaction with its vast hinterland extended over six districts, namely Kolkata, Haora, Hugli, Nadia, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas (Figure 1). The city is well connected to the surrounding areas by an extensive network of sub-urban railways and highways. Many people living in peri-urban areas commute to the city for work by the sub-urban railways and the number of commuters and commuting distances have been increasing significantly over time (Basu & Dhar, 2012). It is reported that the main city of Kolkata has experienced negative growth losing 83,852 persons over the past decade (2001–2011), whereas the peri-urban areas are continuously growing at a much faster rate.

Figure 1.

Source: The author.

Materials and Methods

Source of Data

Census of India provides comprehensive data on each and every household in the country on a decadal basis. For the first time in 2011, the Census has released extensive information on household amenities and asset ownership for each settlement—be it a small village or large city. It provides information on accessibility to household amenities, such as drinking water, housing condition, types of latrine used, among others and also reports ownership of assets by household, for instance, radio, television, computer or laptop, two-wheeler and so forth. Further, widespread information is available at the individual level starting from sex, literacy, social group to occupation and economic activity of worker in the Primary Census Abstract (PCA) component of this Census. For this study, data both from PCA and House listing and Household Amenities database at the village and city level for 2011 have been used.

The household information provided by the Census is very rich and useful. It has started to disseminate tables on the percentage of household with access to basic household amenities and ownership of various assets. However, this database contains some issues, like only the percentage of household of a settlement having access to some civic amenities and assets has been given. The actual number of households of the settlement has not been mentioned. Therefore, information on the household amenities has been obtained from the House listing and Housing Census and the absolute number of households from PCA, 2011 for analysis in this study. In addition, the satellite imagery of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) for 2017 collected from United States Geological Survey-Earth Explorer has also been utilised in this study.

Methodology and Analytical Framework

The satellite imagery has been analysed using Supervised Maximum Likelihood Method for land-use land-cover (LULC) classification. Five major LULC classes have been identified. These are built-up area, water body, agricultural cropland, agricultural fallow land and vegetation cover. This information is superimposed on the village boundary map of Kolkata and its surrounding area to extract built-up area coverage at the village level which is subsequently used for identifying peri-urban areas. As far as quantitative techniques are concerned, a composite household amenity index has been computed using principal component analysis to estimate an overall comparative picture of basic household amenities across the regions. Afterwards, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been applied to test whether the gaps in access to service provisions across the regions – urban core, peri-urban and rural are statistically significant or not. The indicators used and other details of these techniques have been described in the respective sections.

This study is an attempt to explore the accessibility to basic household amenities in peri-urban areas of Kolkata metropolis and to compare its status with the urban and rural areas. The peri-urban areas are very dynamic with time. Therefore, an acceptable methodology for delineation of such transitional areas is far from being standardised. The problem with respect to this is understandable given that the complex characteristics of rapid growth in population and areal setting, irregular and continuous changing morphology and shortage of secondary data. However, the peri-urban interfaces around Kolkata metropolis have been identified at village level using some normative socio-economic standards and land-use characteristics in this study elaborated in the next section. The information of the identified villages has been aggregated together to get the overall data for peri-urban area. Similarly, all the 47 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) located within KMA are considered as urban core; and the areas which are neither ULBs nor peri-urban are treated as rural area.

Identifying Peri-urban Areas Around Kolkata Metropolis

Peri-urban areas are in transition from rural to urban economies and having the characteristics of both rural and urban areas (Adell, 1999). It becomes challenging to differentiate between urban and rural in these spaces due to the coexistence of urban and rural features. Brook and Purushothaman (2003, p. 2) argue, “There is no single satisfactory definition of the peri-urban interface and different definitions are understood to apply in different circumstances. They may even change in the same location over time.” Peri-urbanisation is a process of urban expansion emanating from the city core. Therefore, the areas close to the city tend to be more affected by this process. With this understanding, the adjoining Community Development Blocks (known as CD Blocks) from the surrounding districts of Kolkata metropolis, have been selected for this study and further identification is attempted at the village level (Figure 1).

Given the binary administrative system in India – urban areas governed by ULBs and rural areas under the governance of GP, there is no standard definition for peri-urban areas which are in transition (Mondal & Sen, 2020). Following the characteristics of peri-urban spaces and data availability, this study thus incorporates three normative standards which have been used to identify the transitional areas. These are (a) minimum population of 4,000, (b) at least 50% male main working people engaged in non-agriculture activity and (c) a population density of 300 per square kilometre. These standards are somewhat lower compared to the criteria of Census definition for urban areas¹. Although these cut-offs are ad-hoc in a sense, they facilitate in identification of the potential transitory areas that fall between the rural and urban spaces. Noteworthy to mention, all three criteria are based on demographic and livelihood characteristics. Another critical aspect of peri-urbanisation is the co-existence of urban and rural land uses and an increased extent of built-up area which is a reflection of a progressive urban imprint. Hence, the coverage of built-up area has also been used as a necessary precondition for identifying transitional spaces. The cut-off for built-up area coverage is somewhat challenging since unlike the Census criteria of urban areas, there is no pre-existing acceptable standard norm for this variable. To resolve this issue, analysing the distribution of built-up area in and around Kolkata Metropolis, the average value of 10% coverage has been considered as the normative standard for this study. This norm used in this study is therefore city-specific and the average value could be different for different cities. Finally, the settlements, which fulfil the aforementioned norms and also secure more than 10% built-up area coverage, have been identified as peri-urban areas. Although a huge area surrounds the Kolkata Metropolis, only 196 settlements are considered as peri-urban spaces following the above criteria (Figure 2). These transitional spaces are mostly located near the city of Kolkata though some are found to be located on the outskirts.

Figure 2.

Source: The author.

Results and Discussion

Access to Basic Household Amenities

Household amenities are the basic needs that everyone requires in a day-to-day life. Understandably, household amenities such as housing, safe drinking water, hygienic latrine and bathroom facility, among others are very important for “decent and healthy living of the household members”. National Sample Survey Organization (2014) in this regard rightly argues that –

Housing is a basic requirement of human well-being. Along with the requirement of shelter, other facilities in the micro environment of housing such as type of dwelling unit, drinking water, sanitation, hygiene, etc., form vital components of overall quality of life of the population.

Similarly, Nayar (1997) states housing, water supply, sanitation, and hygiene are the major health-promoting factors and very crucial for maintaining good health. Some essential household amenities, based on the importance and availability of secondary data, such as housing, drinking water, drainage, latrine facility, bathing facility, cooking fuel, electricity and household asset ownership, have been selected for this study. These indicators provide a brief glimpse of household’s standard of living as well as socio-economic condition in the peri-urban areas of Kolkata Metropolis.

Housing

The characteristics of housing and the surrounding environment build two essential pillars of living condition of a household because it is the place where the dwelling units are located and human beings spend most of their time. As far as housing condition is concerned, the urban core shows 64.12% households are living in a good condition houses and one-third are in a liveable condition where “minor repairs” are required. However, the housing condition varies in peri-urban and rural area where the shares of good house go down to 57.29% and 42.72%, respectively (Table 1). Quite surprisingly, dilapidated houses, which are “showing signs of decay or those breaking down and require major repairs or those houses decayed or ruined and are far from being in conditions that can be restored or repaired” (Census of India, 2011), are observed to be very common in peri-urban (6.59) and rural areas (12.62%) than the urban core.

Table 1.

Housing Condition in Peri-urban Kolkata, 2011

Area	Percentage of Household with Housing Condition
Area	Good	Liveable	Dilapidated
Urban	64.12	31.96	3.91
Peri-urban	57.29	36.1	6.59
Rural	41.92	45.46	12.62

Source: Author’s calculation from Census of India, 2011.

Another important aspect of the housing characteristics is the structure of housing – whether it is permanent, semi-permanent, temporary serviceable or non-serviceable house based on the material used for building roof, wall and floor. Although the dominant housing structure in and around Kolkata Metropolis is permanent followed by semi-permanent and temporary houses, there are variations among the urban, peri-urban and rural areas. Urban core is having the lion’s share of the houses (more than 91%) as permanent type, while the share is slightly lesser in peri-urban (83%) and very low in rural areas (59). Further, the situation is deplorable in case of rural areas where 6.7% households are still living in temporary houses with wall and roof made of temporary materials, such as grass, thatch, bamboo, polythene and plastic.

Drinking Water

Availability and accessibility to safe drinking water have always been prioritised over the world as a basic need for human development. Water has “direct relevance to health and wellbeing.” Therefore, “safe and affordable drinking water” has been emphasised under the Sustainable Development Goal–6, that is, “Clean Water and Sanitation.” United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) points out that 663 million people across the world do not have access to improved drinking water supply. They are targeting to “achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all” by 2030 (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2016). The Constitution of India, in its article 47, also mandates that the state government should provide clean drinking water and improve public health standards (Mishra & Shukla, 2015).

Regarding the drinking water, two things are important – main source of drinking water and the distance from the source of water. From Table 2, it is observed that 75.35% households in urban area have access to water from treated tap followed by tube well (13.94) and hand pump (8.8). Unfortunately, the pattern is very different in the case of peri-urban and rural areas where the dominant source of water is handpump (40% and 59%, respectively), while the coverage under the tap water, which is considered as a safe source, is only 28.26% households in peri-urban and 19.37% in rural areas. This is because of the tap water is mostly delivered by the ULB in West Bengal, whereas the GP, that is, the governing body in peri-urban and the rural areas do not have the capacity for this service. Although the Public Health Engineering Department of the state looks after the water supply in urban as well as rural areas, their coverage in non-municipal areas is not sufficient enough. In rural areas, the problem is very grave as 59.78% households drink water from handpump which is sometimes found to be contaminated by arsenic and fluoride, and causing a threat to human health.

Table 2.

Main Sources of Drinking Water, 2011

Area	Tap	Hand Pump	Tube well/Borewell	Well	Others
Urban	75.35	8.83	13.94	0.79	1.1
Peri-urban	28.26	40.84	28.98	1.03	0.89
Rural	19.37	59.78	19.5	0.48	0.87

Source: Author’s calculation from Census of India, 2011.

Another important aspect is that the distance from the source of drinking water that people have to travel to fetch water. Figure 3 reveals that most of the urban citizens (68%) enjoy drinking water within their premises, but the corresponding figure decreases consistently from urban to peri-urban (38%) and becomes very low in rural areas where only one-fourth household reports such facility.

Figure 3.

Source: The author.

Latrine Facility

Access to sanitation facility in general and toilet facility in particular is an important aspect of a household and its living standards. It plays a crucial role for public health and hygiene and “contributes to a clean and improved environment, social development and generates significant economic benefits” (Mishra & Shukla, 2015). One should not forget that the issue with toilet facility is not only related to health and hygiene but also human dignity as well. The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme in its report, “Water supply, Sanitation and Hygiene” (2017), has observed that “39 per cent of the global population (2.9 billion people) used a safely managed sanitation service; that is, excreta safely disposed of in situ or treated off-site,” whereas 2.3 billion population still lack the basic sanitation services across the world. Lack of improved drinking water supply and sanitation facility causes water-borne diseases and claims thousands of lives every day. The report of UNDP (2016) states that “each day, nearly 1,000 children die due to preventable water and sanitation-related diarrhoeal diseases” is very disturbing. The statistics in India is also very alarming, as the NSSO (2014) observes one in every five households in rural India and one-tenth in urban India have no latrine facility and defecate openly.

There are huge gaps among the urban core, peri-urban and rural areas in terms of access to latrine facility and the types of latrine used by the households. In urban areas, the situation is much better than that of the two other areas. It is reported (Figure 4) that 93.7% households in the urban core of Kolkata metropolis use latrine facility within the premise, while the figure for peri-urban areas is 88% and much lower in rural areas (only 65.5%).

Figure 4.

Source: The author.

Considering the types of latrine, the urban core shows that the flush latrine connected to septic tank is the dominant type (54.5% HHs) followed by flush connected to piped sewage system (21%), pit with slab (15%) and untreated type (7%). On the other hand, exactly an opposite pattern is observed in the peri-urban interface where the pit latrine with slab (46.9%) and the septic tank (31%) covers the maximum part and a considerable proportion of HHs (9%) are still dependent on the untreated latrine. These peri-urban areas, which are going to be urban in the near future, are still lacking the improved latrine facility. What is more striking is that the figure of no latrine facility within the premise is consistently increasing from urban core (6.2%) to peri-urban (11.5%) and reaches to the maximum in rural areas which reports 34% households exercise open defecation is alarming. Here, one should remember about the role of public latrine facility; although 6.2% HHs in urban core lack latrine facility in their premises, interestingly 4.7% HHs have been provided the alternative public latrine by the ULBs in Kolkata thereby reducing the open defecation to 1.6% only. In contrast, the provision of public latrine facility is very limited in peri-urban and rural area due to their institutional structure and the coverage under such toilet is only 3.2% and 2.9%, respectively, resulting in turn high prevalence of open defecation. Higher access to latrine facility in urban core and to some extent in peri-urban areas can be attributed to the fact of scarcity of open space and huge population pressure, while the lack of concern for hygiene among rural folks plays for the lower level of coverage. One should note here that the “rural households not only have poor accessibility to toilet facilities but also the progress of implementation is rather slow” (Mishra & Shukla, 2015).

Household Assets

It is imperative to study the economic condition prevailing in the peri-urban areas of Kolkata. Unfortunately, the information regarding household income or expenditure is not available for urban centres or rural areas. However, Census of India provides extensive information on the availability of household assets such as Radio, Television, Computer, Mobile, Bicycle, Motorcycle, Car, among others. More importantly, this information is accessible for each settlement in Census 2011. In addition, there is another column in the assets table called “none of the assets specified” or assetless household which in fact indicates the poor. Therefore, this study uses this information of “assetless household” as a proxy indicator of poor economic condition and tries to assess the scenario in peri-urban areas of Kolkata Metropolis in comparison with urban areas. There is significant difference in terms of assetless household across the areas. The urban core shows negligible proportions of households (5.2%) are living without any HH asset while the corresponding figures are quite higher in the peri-urban (10.8) and rural areas (22.8%) in particular (Figure 5). Thus, it may be appropriate to say that location plays a very significant role in deciding the economic condition of a household.

Figure 5.

Source: The author.

Composite Profile of Household Amenities

One particular urban centre or peri-urban area may have better access to one or two amenities but not in others. For this reason, a composite amenity index has been computed to capture the comprehensive picture in the peri-urban areas of Kolkata Metropolis in comparison with the urban and rural counterparts. The composite index has been constructed using princpal component analysis. For the indices, it includes eight indicators, namely percentage of households with treated tap water, closed drainage connection, bathroom facility, electricity, LPG/PNG as cooking fuel, dilapidated houses, open defecation and asset deprivation. Both the positive and negative indicators have been used in this analysis, thereby “Normalisation”² process has been adopted before proceeding for computation of the index. Indeed, the combination of these indicators reflects the level of development in peri-urban interfaces. The composite index value in the surrounding areas of Kolkata Metropolis ranges from 0.08 to 0.96. Therefore, the indices have been clubbed into three quintile groups for better understanding where a score of less than 0.38 is considered as low level of amenities, a score of 0.38 – 0.47 is taken as moderate level and the score more than 0.47 as high level.

It is observed that there is marked variation across the regions in terms of level of composite amenities. The composite indices in Table 3 show that the urban core has secured better accessibility to household amenities while the rural areas receive least opportunities, and the peri-urban spaces are lying in between the two. All the urban centres (100%) are enjoying high level of household amenities, whereas 91.8% peri-urban areas have such facilities. Contrastingly, the pattern of rural areas is exactly opposite as the dominant type of household amenities is low level (35.5%) followed by moderate level (35.1%) and high-level services are observed only in 29% rural areas.

Table 3.

Overall Status of Basic Amenities across the Areas, 2011

Area	Low	Moderate	High	Total
Area	(<0.38)	(0.38–0.47)	(>0.47)	(0.08–0.96)
Urban	0	0	47	47
Urban	(0.0)	(0.0)	(100.0)	(100.0)
Peri-urban	2	14	180	196
Peri-urban	(1.0)	(7.1)	(91.8)	(100.0)
Rural area	1,326	1,315	1,102	3,743
Rural area	(35.4)	(35.1)	(29.4)	(100.0)
Total	1,328	1,329	1,329	3,986
Total	(33.3)	(33.3)	(33.3)	(100.0)

Source: Author’s calculation from Census of India, 2011.

Note: Figures in parenthesis represent percentage.

The spatial distribution of the peri-urban spaces by the level of basic services shows an interesting pattern (Figure 6). Almost all the peri-urban areas with high-level household amenities are observed to be located adjacent or nearer to the urban centres. This is because of the fact that the distance from the city does play an important role in peri-urbanisation. The areas closer to the city tend to be more influenced by urban expansion and received the spillover effects from the urban centres (Banu & Fazal, 2013; Kundu et al., 2002).

Figure 6.

Source: The author.

Gaps in Accessibility to Basic Services Across Regions

The status of basic household amenities has been discussed in the previous section. An attempt is made in this section to highlight the gaps in accessibility to basic services across three regions – urban core, peri-urban and rural area by using box plots. In addition to inter-regional comparison, the box plots also facilitate intra-regional analysis. Therefore, the variation in access to HH amenities within the groups has been studied in detail.

It is observed from the box plots, Figure 7, that there are marked differences across the board in terms of access to basic household amenities and ownership of assets. For all basic services, the urban core is having better opportunities and advantages, whereas the rural areas are the ones living with the least opportunities and peri-urban interfaces have been represented as spatial continuum lying somewhere between the two. These places are somehow better than the rural areas but far behind from the urban areas. The urban core shows that more than 60% households have accessibility to basic services, such as electricity, tap water from treated source, bathroom facility within premise and LPG/PNG as cooking fuel, contrastingly the corresponding figures range from 14.5% to 43.8% in peri-urban area, and the rural area do not even cross the 12% mark for these services, except electricity which is quite good but still far behind from the two. On the other hand, the indicators, such as HHs with dilapidated house, open defecation and asset deprivation (i.e., the poor) report high prevalence in rural areas and low to moderate presence found in peri-urban area, while very few HHs in urban core account such cases. Moreover, the gaps in accessing the household amenities are somehow very sharp in cases such as open defecation, tap water from treated source and LPG/PNG used for cooking than the other services.

In the box plots, one can figure out some “outlier”³ centres (areas), in all cases except few, across the board in terms of the household amenities and asset deprivation denoting that they are “distant” from the main group of data set (Sidhwani, 2015). The prevalence of these outliers, in other words, indicates that there is considerable intra-regional variation within the group in accessing these service provisions. The urban core, in Figure 7(a), shows that all the HHs amenities, apart from tap water and LPG gas, have outlier urban centres, though the number of outliers is very less ranging from 2 to 3 signifying little variation among the urban centres. On the other hand, the magnitude of variation is relatively higher in case of open defecation and closed drainage where the number of outliers is quite higher (5 each).

In peri-urban areas, Figure 7(b) shows, all the services apart from bathroom and LPG facility are observed to have outlier centres ranging from 4 to 7 means that these outlier areas are significantly away or detached from the average figure and huge differences exist among the peri-urban areas. In transitional areas, the share of households living in dilapidated house, exercising open defecation and deprived of assets are quite less varying from 7.24% to 11.29%, excluding some peri-urban outlier centres where the condition is really worse. On the other hand, few outlier centres are observed in some positive indicators, such as accessibility to treated tap water and closed drainage. This specifies the fact that although peri-urban regions report moderate coverage in these two services, some areas (i.e., outlier centres) are better off in these services thereby ensuing high intra-regional variation.

In rural areas, Figure 7(c), huge gaps have been prevailing in all basic amenities, except electricity and open defecation, as the number of outliers is pretty much varying from 103 to 497 in different services. Although the average percentage of household availing tap water from treated source, closed drainage, LPG gas, etc., are minimal, not more than 4% in rural areas, predominance of outliers on the positive side (497, 326 and 240, respectively) points out that some rural areas have exceptionally better accessibility causing the high variation or gaps in these services. Conversely, in case of open defecation, no outlier is found but the overall condition is abysmally bad for all rural areas together as on an average 34.5% HHs defecate openly.

Figure 7.

Source: The author.

ANOVA Analysis: Testing the Significance of Gaps in Access to Basic Services

ANOVA has been used to test whether the gaps with regards to these services across regions are statistically significant or not. It is argued that one way ANOVA is the appropriate method for comparing the means among more than two groups (Kim, 2014) and also controls Type 1 error efficiently (Sow, 2014). In this analysis, the factor or independent variable is the area with three responses—urban core, peri-urban and rural area, and the dependent variables are eight basic household services. The null hypothesis is that there is no variation between these areas in terms of accessibility to basic services, while the alternative hypothesis states that at least one of the areas significantly differs from others.

There are unequal number of observations in the groups (i.e., the areas); the urban core has only 47 areas, peri-urban has 196 and the number of rural areas is as high as 3,743. The descriptive statistics show that the means (average) of these basic services and asset ownership across the regions are very different from each other. In case of the five positive indicators, for instance, households with treated tap water, bathroom, closed drainage, electricity and LPG/PNG connection, the urban core is reported to have higher coverage with low standard deviations indicating less variation within, while the rural areas have lower averages and higher variations, and the peri-urban areas remain in between the two groups. Moreover, in case of the negative indicators, such as household with dilapidated house, open defecation and asset deprivation, the rural areas top in the list, while the corresponding values are reported very less in urban core and modest in peri-urban interfaces.

One way ANOVA being a parametric test assumes equal variance within the group and follows a normal distribution. Contrastingly, the Levene Statistics confirm that all the eight variables are statistically significant which implies unequal variances within the groups and violates the assumption of the test (Table A1). The variables also fail the normality test indicating that they do not follow a normal distribution. However, Green and Salkind (2014) argue that one way ANOVA can be used with a large sample size, more than 15, if normality is violated. In case of the unequal variances and different sample sizes, “the resulting p-value for the overall F-test is untrustworthy.” Under such condition, it is preferable to “use statistics that do not assume equality of population variances, such as the Browne-Forsythe or the Welch statistics” in addition to F-statistics to have greater significant results (Green & Salkind, 2014). Therefore, one way ANOVA has been used in this study along with the additional statistics such as Browne-Forsythe or the Welch statistics.

As far as the significance of the overall the test is concerned, it is observed that the ANOVA test is statistically significant as the F-statistics are reported to be very high (F (2, 3982) ranging from 35.783 to 969.672 with df (2, 3983), while the tabled F-value is 6.92 at 0.001 significance level), and the significance values for all cases are 0.000, that is, <0.001 (Table 4). The Welch and Brown-Forsythe Statistics are also highly significant at < 0.001 level strengthening result of F-statistics or the significance of the test (Table 5). Therefore, the ANOVA is strongly significant, and the null hypothesis stands rejected. So it can be argued that the variation in terms of access to basic services across the regions is significant. Further, the Games-Howell Post Hoc analysis has been used to “evaluate pairwise differences among the means” of these selected indicators. The statistics also reveal significant results (significance level 0.000, that is, at <0.001 level) in all pair cases across the eight variables (Table A2). It can, therefore, be concluded that there are marked variations across three areas—urban core, peri-urban and rural areas with regards to accessibility of basic household amenities and asset deprivation.

Table 4.

ANOVA Results Assessing the Variations in Access to Basic Services Across Regions

Variables		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Dilapidated house	Between groups	7999.525	2	3999.762	35.783	0.000*
	Within groups	445213.965	3,983	111.779
	Total	453213.49	3,985
Treated tap water	Between groups	128761.572	2	64380.786	106.679	0.000*
	Within groups	2403746.632	3,983	603.502
	Total	2532508.204	3,985
Electricity	Between groups	181829.552	2	90914.776	166.458	0.000*
	Within groups	2175402.445	3,983	546.172
	Total	2357231.997	3,985
Open defecation	Between groups	164468.205	2	82234.102	174.497	0.000*
	Within groups	1877041.56	3,983	471.263
	Total	2041509.764	3,985
Closed drain	Between groups	21812.465	2	10906.233	225.002	0.000*
	Within groups	193062.973	3,983	48.472
	Total	214875.438	3,985
LPG/PNG for cooking	Between groups	228686.646	2	114343.323	969.672	0.000*
	Within groups	469673.934	3,983	117.92
	Total	698360.58	3,985
Assetless household	Between groups	29980.054	2	14990.027	70.824	0.000*
	Within groups	843011.073	3,983	211.652
	Total	872991.127	3,985
Bathroom	Between groups	254590.796	2	127295.398	495.366	0.000*
	Within groups	1023521.438	3,983	256.972
	Total	1278112.235	3,985

Source: Author’s calculation from Census of India, 2011.

Note: * significant at <0.001 level.

Table 5.

Robustness Tests for Equality of Means

Variables		Statistic^a	df1	df2	Sig.
Dilapidated house	Welch	198.80	2	130.86	0.000*
Dilapidated house	Brown-Forsythe	217.20	2	345.94	0.000*
Treated tap water	Welch	72.81	2	102.48	0.000*
Treated tap water	Brown-Forsythe	85.32	2	111.57	0.000*
Electricity	Welch	1208.22	2	155.95	0.000*
Electricity	Brown-Forsythe	1170.51	2	399.27	0.000*
Open defecation	Welch	1695.87	2	198.04	0.000*
Open defecation	Brown-Forsythe	1105.40	2	350.96	0.000*
Closed drain	Welch	74.78	2	100.43	0.000*
Closed drain	Brown-Forsythe	64.81	2	89.74	0.000*
LPG/PNG for cooking	Welch	385.97	2	100.60	0.000*
LPG/PNG for cooking	Brown-Forsythe	375.38	2	176.98	0.000*
Assetless household	Welch	412.99	2	134.85	0.000*
Assetless household	Brown-Forsythe	405.46	2	356.35	0.000*
Bathroom	Welch	371.96	2	102.10	0.000*
Bathroom	Brown-Forsythe	355.87	2	202.62	0.000*

Source: Author’s calculation from Census of India, 2011.

Notes: ^a Asymptotically F distributed.

* significant at < 0.001 level.

Conclusions and Avenues for Future Research

This article illustrates the status of basic household amenities of peri-urban spaces which are in transition from rural to urban economies. It is observed that the urban areas have better access to services and facilities, while rural residents are living with least opportunities under an abysmal condition and the peri-urban interfaces around Kolkata metropolis have been represented as a spatial continuum lying somewhere between the two. They are somehow better than the rural counterparts but far behind from the urban areas. Moreover, the gaps in access to basic services are somehow very sharp in cases, such as latrine facility, tap water from treated source, bathroom facility, and LPG/PNG for cooking. The study also has explored huge intra-regional variation within the peri-urban areas in this regard. Transitional spaces closer to the urban areas are more developed in terms of service provisioning compared to the areas located outskirts. This is because of the distance factor as the impact of urban expansion decreases with increasing distance from the city core (Banu & Fazal, 2013; Kundu et al., 2002). Evaluating these indicators on a regular basis would facilitate a better understanding of peri-urban spaces. However, due to the unavailability and inconsistency of data at village level in the previous Census enumeration, this study has been restricted to the assessment of the present situation. The temporal analysis could not be carried out for lack of reliable information. It would be beneficial and insightful to see how the status of basic services in peri-urban areas varies over time.

In a nutshell, this article demonstrates that the basic service provisions in peri-urban areas of India and Kolkata Metropolis, in particular, is inadequate and unsatisfactory. This study thus resembles the hypothesis of “degenerated periphery” that the expansion of cities creates peripheries around without proper basic civic amenities and infrastructural facilities necessary for its residents to maintain the standard of living (Kundu, 2012; Kundu et al., 2002). This issue of inadequate basic services in the peri-urban areas relates to the institutional structure and administrative system of these transitional areas. Although the peri-urban interfaces are growing faster and undergoing continuous changes with regards to land-use, economic condition and population characteristics are in fact governed by the Gram Panchayats (i.e., village council) which have poor financial base and functional capacity to deal with these dynamic spaces (Dahiya, 2003b; Shaw, 2005). The basic services that the city government, that is, Urban Local Bodies, such as Municipality or Municipal Corporation provides to its citizens do not reach to these peri-urban areas as they “often lie outside the legal jurisdiction of the city and sometimes, even outside the legal jurisdiction of any urban local body” (Shaw, 2005). The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (1992) has brought some hope with its recognition of transitional areas from rural to urban as the civic status of Nagar Panchayat4 to be the lower tier of urban body for better governance system. Unfortunately, most of the states in India have not implemented this Nagar Panchayat⁴ so far on the ground (Shaw, 2005). These problems of basic services in transitional areas, therefore, receive categorically less attention given a fuzzy institutional structure. Hence, the questions need to be researched further: Is it sustainable or affordable to leave these dynamic transitional areas under fuzzy institutional structure with poor living condition when aspiring to have inclusive and balanced urban development? How could the basic service provisions be managed in these fast-growing peri-urban areas? Considering the complexities of these dynamic peri-urban spaces, it is recommended that the institutional arrangement in these areas and their role in providing basic services need further investigation.

This study also extends valuable implications for the stakeholders involved in the planning process. Peri-urban areas around cities must be given due consideration with special plans for the betterment of the basic services and infrastructural facilities as these spaces are going to be urban or be part of the extended urban body in the near future. For making the cities resilient and the growth inclusive, it is imperative to emphasise on these dynamic transitional spaces. This study further suggests that the development of institutional capacities along with the involvement of civil society organisations can facilitate the transitional peri-urban spaces to have better infrastructural facilities and quality of life for its residents.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Appendix

Table A2.

Post Hoc Games–Howell Statistics

Variables			Mean Difference (I–J)	Std. Error	Sig.	95% Confidence Interval
Variables			Mean Difference (I–J)	Std. Error	Sig.	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
Dilapidated house	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	5.42649^* 7.62883^*	0.3789 0.4692	0.000 0.000	4.53 6.50	6.32 8.76
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	–5.42649^* 2.20234^*	0.3789 0.5484	0.000 0.000	–6.32 0.90	–4.53 3.51
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	–7.62883^* –2.20234^*	0.4692 0.5484	0.000 0.000	–8.76 –3.51	–6.50 –0.90
Treated tap water	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	–8.66782^* –50.14068^*	1.7481 4.4997	0.000 0.000	–12.79 –61.03	–4.54 –39.25
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	8.66782^* –41.47286^*	1.7481 4.7940	0.000 0.000	4.54 –52.99	12.79 –29.95
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	50.14068^* 41.47286^*	4.4997 4.7940	0.000 0.000	39.25 29.95	61.03 52.99
Electricity	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	–26.59365^* –34.17018^*	0.8287 0.7774	0.000 0.000	–28.54 –36.03	–24.64 –32.31
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	26.59365^* –7.57653^*	0.8287 0.9917	0.000 0.000	24.64 –9.92	28.54 –5.23
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	34.17018^* 7.57653^*	0.7774 0.9917	0.000 0.000	32.31 5.23	36.03 9.92
Open defecation	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	25.16330^* 32.90624^*	0.8465 0.5843	0.000 0.000	23.17 31.52	27.16 34.29
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	–25.16330^* 7.74294^*	0.8465 0.8906	0.000 0.000	–27.16 5.64	–23.17 9.84
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	–32.90624^* –7.74294^*	0.5843 0.8906	0.000 0.000	–34.29 –9.84	–31.52 –5.64
Closed drain	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	–7.27277^* –16.40966^*	0.7319 2.2579	0.000 0.000	–9.00 –21.88	–5.54 –10.94
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	7.27277^* –9.13689^*	0.7319 2.3687	0.000 0.001	5.54 –14.84	9.00 –3.43
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	16.40966^* 9.13689^*	2.2579 2.3687	0.000 0.001	10.94 3.43	21.88 14.84
LPG/PNG for cooking	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	–25.05919^* –50.29388^*	1.3605 2.3860	0.000 0.000	–28.27 –56.07	–21.85 –44.52
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	25.05919^* –25.23469^*	1.3605 2.7365	0.000 0.000	21.85 –31.77	28.27 –18.70
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	50.29388^* 25.23469^*	2.3860 2.7365	0.000 0.000	44.52 18.70	56.07 31.77
Assetless household	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	10.45278^* 14.91978^*	0.5551 0.6014	0.000 0.000	9.15 13.48	11.76 16.36
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	–10.45278^* 4.46700^*	0.5551 0.7422	0.000 0.000	–11.76 2.71	–9.15 6.23
		Rural Urban	–10.45278^* 4.46700^*	0.5551 0.7422	0.000 0.000	–11.76 2.71	–9.15 6.23
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	–14.91978^* –4.46700^*	0.6014 0.7422	0.000 0.000	–16.36 –6.23	–13.48 –2.71
Bathroom	Rural	Peri-urban Urban	–27.33727^* –51.20690^*	1.5433 2.4193	0.000 0.000	–30.98 –57.06	–23.69 –45.35
	Peri-urban	Rural Urban	27.33727^* –23.86963^*	1.5433 2.8466	0.000 0.000	23.69 –30.66	30.98 –17.08
	Urban	Rural Peri-urban	51.20690^* 23.86963^*	2.4193 2.8466	0.000 0.000	45.35 17.08	57.06 30.66

Source: Author’s calculation from Census of India, 2011.

Note: * The mean difference is significant at 0.05 level.

Notes

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