Author: cprindia

In March 2024, my colleagues Shubham Kashyap, Aena Rawal and I were on the road to Dhampur again to resume the field work for our study: Forty Years’ Development Saga of Dhampur: Growth Dynamics and Regional Transformation of an Indian Small Town. While I was busy introspecting about how we will go about our work in Dhampur, I was also noticing everything passing by, the towns and villages, factories, and green fields lush with sugar cane, wheat and mustard crops. Also, the towns and villages we passed through had the string of familiar roadside shops and services that straddle between rural and urban life styles, ranging from fancy clothes and shoe stores, fruit and vegetable stalls, chemists, mobile phone repairs, barbers and beauty salons, construction materials, furniture, household goods, agricultural implements, sweet shops, tea shops, biryani joints, and restaurants also displaying pictures of fast food (burgers, momos and noodles) along with the usual Indian dishes on their boards. 

As we approached Gajraula town, I started noticing a few pizza places. When looked closely I found that none of these were popular pizza brands I was familiar with, such as: Domino’s, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, La Pino’s, US Pizza, Chicago Pizza, Papa John’s, Oven Story and Slice of Italy. There were names like Pizza Slice, Pizza Nagari, ONO Pizza, Roms Pizza, etc. Going around in Dhampur town, we came across several more such as: Biggies Pizza, Pizza Uncle, Pizza Point, Pizza Universe, Friends’ Zone Pizza, Hunger Pizza, Delicious Pizza and Shambhu Pizza.

We preferred to have lunch in a restaurant while being out and about the town as we always had dinner at the Eurasia Palace hotel where we were staying. The numerous street food carts selling popular foods like Parathas, Biryani, Chhole Bhature, Momos and Burgers didn’t appeal to us. There were only two multi-cuisine restaurants in the town that could meet our expectation of hygiene, ambience and choice of dishes, namely the Indian Corner and Gulmohar. Hence, we often ended up in one of the pizza places for a change. To our surprise, we found that the pizza toppings were very similar to what we would find in pizzerias in Delhi and other large cities, and not drastically customised to suit more Indian small-town palate. Some of the larger pizza places also had home delivery services, such as Biggies Pizza, Pizza Uncle and The PizzaBite. The only difference was that none of these restaurants offered thin crust pizzas. However, the price of pizzas was about half the price of what one would pay in well-known pizza joints like Dominos in larger cities, which is understandable keeping in mind the local affordability levels.

Remembering my student days, when going out to eat always meant going to an Chinese restaurant, I wondered what would explain the penetration of pizzas into the Indian small towns and the countryside, as the only international cuisine that is so visible?

After trying out several pizza places and talking to some of the restaurant owners, I came to understand that there are a number of explanatory factors for the popularity of pizza places in a small town like Dhampur:

Pizza Joints Have Not Replaced the Conventional Food Outlets: As is the case in many smaller towns and cities in India, sweet shops also offering a range of savory delicacies continue to be the go-to places for take-aways in Dhampur as well. Khairati’s sweet shop located in Bhagat Singh Chauk is about two hundred years’ old and is the most popular of such sweet shops. Bhagat Singh Chauk in the center of the town also has many snack vendors, where people stop to take a bite while shopping in the market, or just go there for a quick snack. The most well-known of these is about hundred years’ old Jain Kachari Wala who specialises in selling Singhada (Water Chestnut), Lobia Beans and Moong dal Kachari (A slow cooked creamy paste) served with a chunk of butter, green chutney and sweet chutney. Virendra Saini, the third-generation owner of this business, opens this shop at 6 am and closes by mid-day. Food carts continue to serve this dish along with other snacks like Chaat, Samosa, Kachori and Aloo Tiki through the day. In addition, there are several well-known Samosa, Pakora and Kachori shops in the main bazaar street and at key points such as: near the railway station, bus terminal and Nagina Chauraha. But none of these joints offer dine-in facility for a relaxed eating out experience.

Increased Disposable Income: With economic development and more disposal incomes in hand, particularly in India’s urban areas, and also in the neighbouring rural areas, eating out has become the most prominent life style changes. Newer and more eating out options are coming to meet the preferences of the clientele of different income groups.

Impact of Internet and Media: The media and advertising have an undeniable role in promoting various kinds of cuisines that prominent social influencers in large cities prefer to eat. Easy access to internet and platforms like YouTube also makes it possible for young people in small towns and villages to learn more about these new kinds of cuisines.

Changing Aspirations of the Youth: Pizzas appear to be the new exotic food in India’s small towns. Pizza joints meet the aspirations of the younger generation, who think it is fashionable to eat in a fancy restaurant where they can chill out with friends and take pictures. These restaurants also provide a safe space to young men and women who can spend time together without social scrutiny.

Similarities Between Pizzas and Roti-Sabzi: Easy acceptance of its structure and taste, as in a way it is similar to the most widespread North Indian staple Roti-Sabzi, albeit with a bit of tomato sauce and cheese. And, you can make it spicier to match your taste by adding jalapeno toping and chili flakes. Pragmatism of eating it with hands with no fear of being frowned upon for not using unfamiliar cutlery like fork and knife has an additional appeal.

Finally, one can say that popularity of pizzas is one of the indicators of the widespread life style transformation taking place in an aspirational small town like Dhampur.

Note: All pictures are taken by Pushpa Pathak

Source: Author analysis of data from EIDB->SYSTEM ON INDIA’s Export Import, Ministry of Commerce https://tradestat.commerce.gov.in/ 2025-26 refers to the first quarter of the fiscal year, i.e., April 2025 to June 2025
Note that “Traditional West Asia” refers to three large sources, viz. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. Other Traditional includes USA, Brazil, Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria and Oman. Together with Russia, they were the top ten sources in 2021-22, before the spurt in crude imports from Russia. Rest comprises other 31 countries from which there were imports under HSN code 27090000 for 2018-19 to 2021-22 and HSN 27090020 for 2022-23 to 2025-26.

Figure 1 shows how the source countries of India’s imports of petroleum crude has changed since 2018-19, with the rise in the share of Russia from 1% in 2018-19 to 35.1% (by value) in 2024-25 (35.8% by volume). However, over this period, there have actually been two transitions. 

The first transition, over 2018-19 to 2021-22 (admittedly, a CoVID-affected year), was when India stopped importing from first, Iran and then Venezuela. Their share of 17% in 2018-19, about 41 million tons out of a total of 226 million tons, was largely made up by stepping up the share from traditional sources. 

The second transition is the increase in imports from Russia, which goes from 4 million tons in 2021-22 to over 87 million tons in 2024-25. In this shift, the share of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and UAE reduced by 11 percentage points, but since the overall import went from 196 million tons to 244 million tons, their overall quantity remained about the same. However, for the other six countries, not only did their share drop by 18 percentage points, the quantity imported from them reduced by more than half, from over 60 million tons to under 30 million tons. The shares of other countries (‘Rest’) also declined, as did overall imports from them. However, imports from some countries, like Angola and South Korea, show an increase over 2021-22 to 2024-24. Some imports from Venezuela also seem to have resumed. Thus, the increase in imports from Russia has been accompanied by a decrease in imports from many countries, some of whom saw a drastic fall in their exports to India.

Figure 2 compares average unit values (total imports by value divided by imports by volume) of imports from Russia and other countries. Before 2021-22 (this Russia Ukraine war started in February 2022), Russian crude was priced at a premium, while post 2021-22, it was indeed priced at a discount. The discount was substantial in the two years, 2022-23 (14.1%) and 2023-24 (10.4%). This implies savings in the total crude import bill of about USD 5 billion a year or 3.1% and 3.9% respectively, given the counterfactual that Russian crude was substituted with crude at the average non-Russian price. However, if India were to shift to other suppliers, given its import volume, the global price might actually have risen, i.e. this is the claim that US wanted India to buy Russian crude to keep the oil market stable and prices in check. So, the value of savings may have been higher, but it would have been likely be under 1% of the total Indian import bill.

While chairing the 10th Governing Council Meeting of NITI Aayog on 24th May 2025, PM Narendra Modi observed that: ‘India is urbanising rapidly.’ He asked the states to make cities the engine of sustainability and growth, and urged them to focus on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. He noted that a Rs 1 lakh crore Urban Challenge Fund (UCF) is being created for seed money.

In the budget 2025-26, an annual allocation of Rs. 10,000 crores is made for UCF to implement project proposals for `Cities as Growth Hubs’, `Creative Re-development of Cities’ and `Water and Sanitation.’ The Centre will finance up to 25% of the cost of bankable projects provided at least 50% of the cost is funded from bonds, bank loans, and PPPs. 

In 2002-03, the government had proposed to set up a similar City Challenge Fund (CCF) to provide incentivised partial public financing for urban infrastructure development. However, no financial allocation was made specifically for setting up CCF. A total of Rs. 24.68 crores were set aside for a wide range of Other Urban Development Schemes, including CCF. This allocation was increased to Rs. 50 lakhs for the financial years 2003-04 and 2004-05. However, no city had accessed CCF, perhaps because the size of the fund was too small and the stipulation of designing and implementing associated city-level reforms was too demanding.  

The rationale behind setting up UCF, with a much larger allocation of funds, is the realisation that the limited public finance must be leveraged to raise funds from the market for improving urban infrastructure and services. This is because municipal revenues have not increased significantly in most cities, but have remained stagnant on an average at about 1 per cent share of GDP between 2007-08 and 2017-18 as reported in the 15th Finance Commission Report.

At Rs. 10,000 crores per year, the size of the UCF kitty is definitely huge in comparison. But the question is: Are Indian cities, particularly in Tier 2 and 3 categories, better equipped to access partial funding from UCF while raising the remaining resources from the market two decades later?

The current scenario is more positive for possible successful implementation of UCF. First, though only 16 cities have opted to raise funds through municipal bonds, a significantly larger number of cities have some experience of PPP arrangements for infrastructure development. Second, all projects eligible under the three categories for UCF funding have some revenue generation potential. However, many Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities may not have the capacity to design large infrastructure projects with complex funding arrangement including bonds, bank loans, and PPPs to qualify for UCF support.  Hence, the central government should make the following policy changes to enable Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities to access UCF funds in the next five years:

First, increase the government incentive from the proposed 50 per cent to 60 per cent, with 30 per cent being central grant and matching 30 per cent coming from the state governments, and to reduce market borrowings and PPPs to at least 40 percent. This will also be in line with the current government practice as is followed by the Ministry of Finance for implementing the Viability Gap Funding scheme for supporting infrastructure projects undertaken through PPPs with the similar objective of making them commercially viable.

Second, synchronise UCF funding with other ongoing government schemes to optimise their outcomes, in particular: Commerce Ministry supported formulation of ‘City Level Economic Vision for 100 Tier 2 and 3 Cities’ by June 2026, as a part of nationwide reforms to create manufacturing hubs in 1,039 cities; and Niti Aayog’s Growth Hubs Initiative currently covering 4 cities that is to be scaled up to 16 cities. This would help states and cities to identify a few low hanging bankable urban infrastructure projects suitable to get funding from UCF with relative ease and speed.

Third, as the central government is interested in broad-basing its support to tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, and these cities may require technical support for preparation of bankable projects, some allocation should be made for financing it while formulating the operational design of UCF. 

To conclude, supporting Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities will help in fulfilling the country’s aspiration of becoming Viksit Bharat by 2047 as well as in meeting the objective of realizing a more spatially dispersed and equable urban growth pattern in India.

Figure 1: Price Indices of New and Second-Hand Buildings in Chinese Cities 

(Jan-May 2024 = 100)

Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China Sales Prices of Commercial Residential Buildings in 70 Medium and Large-sized Cities: https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202506/t20250616_1960179.html

Last week, the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) released data on real estate prices. Of the seventy cities for which the NBS collects data, in all except two, viz. Shanghai, the second-richest city, and Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province and among the poorer cities in China, the price of newly constructed buildings is lower in the first half of this year compared to the same period in the last year. Furthermore, the price of second-hand buildings is lower in all the cities, even Shanghai and Taiyuan and in all but five, of which Beijing is one exception, where prices of new buildings have fallen by more than that of older buildings, the price of second hand buildings has fallen by more than for new buildings. All this does not point to a stabilizing real estate market. It is also true that the overall price index for China has not grown either — the national consumer price index (CPI) decreased by 0.1%, year on year, with the rural CPI falling by 0.4%, but that is cold comfort.

In the least affected quintile, i.e., the 14 cities with the least fall in prices, the average fall was 1.6%, while in the most affected quintile, the 14 cities with the highest fall in prices, the average fall was 7.3% and these include important economic cities like Wenzhou, Guangzhou, Fuzhou and Tangshan. Indeed, based on a sub-sample of 35 of these cities for which city GDP data is easily available, there is little relationship with the economic well-being of the city. 

Given the current global economic and political uncertainty, which is also reflected in China’s own growth, it is natural that homebuyers are cautious. Further, the fall in prices may lead them to wait and see if the prices will come down even more. It looks like the malaise that started with the fall of firms like Evergrande and Country Garden may continue for some time.

By contrast, in India, based on the RESIDEX index released by the National Housing Bank (https://residex.nhbonline.org.in/) for 50 cities, the top quintile, i.e., the ten cities with the highest increase in prices, saw an average rise of 22.8%, though the bottom ten saw almost no increase, with two, Thiruvananthapuram and Haora, registering a decline. The other three quintiles saw a rise of 4.9% to 10.3% over last year, very different from the Chinese picture.

All through 2024, we have been doing extensive field-based research for the study titled “Forty Years’ Development Saga of Dhampur: Growth Dynamics and Regional Transformation Potential of an Indian Small Town.” This small town has gone through major transformations in several spheres over the four decades. One such area of change is abundant provision of medical services.

At the time of earlier study, Pushpa Pathak had observed that there were just a few doctors’ clinics. Even in the recent past, there were only 3 or 4 well known doctors practicing in Dhampur such as: Dr. Bagchi, Dr. Parikh, Dr. Lalin Khan and one Homeopathic doctor popularly known as Dr. Chawanni as he charged only 4 Annas for a consultation.

Currently, Dhampur is a small town of about 1 lakh population located in district Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. Public health infrastructure in Dhampur includes a Primary Health Centre (PHC), Community Health Centre (CHC) and a 100 bed hospital that is not fully functional, However, these government centres provide limited medical services. At present 200-300 patients visit the Outpatient department (OPD) and 1-2 patients visit Inpatient Department (IPD) in CHC every day, but it has only one doctor and four beds, which is far lower than the norms for CHC. According to the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) Guidelines, a CHC should have 30 beds and 7 doctors specialising in Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Surgery, Paediatrics, Dental Care and AYUSH. 

The first striking feature pertaining to medical services is the surprisingly large number of private hospitals and clinics for a small town like Dhampur. Another striking fact is that most of the medical facilities are located along both sides of the Kalagarh Road, an east-west state highway in the Northern part of the town. The total number of private hospitals and clinics in Dhampur is around fifty, including Dental Care, of which 37 are located on the Kalagarh Road alone and rest of them are located in other parts of the town. In addition, there are 2 Homeopathic clinics and 16 diagnostic centres located in various parts of the town. 

All the private hospitals together in Dhampur have around 500 beds and 40 to 45 doctors catering to a very large number of patients. For example, 50 OPD and 5 to 7 IPD patients visit Damyanti Devi Nursing Home every day. It has 25 beds and 3 doctors. Durga City Hospital has 50 beds and 3 doctors and gets 20 to 25 OPD and 2 to 3 IPD patients daily. Clearly the ratio of doctors and beds to the number of patients in private hospitals is far better than in the government CHC. 

These facts obviously made us ask: Why are there so many private hospitals and clinics in Dhampur? Why are most of them clustered along a single road one after the other? Following are some of the explanations for these two questions: 

First, India has a large healthcare infrastructure dominated by the private sector, which is very common all over India. This is basically because most public health sector entities have limited facilities which are often of lower quality.

Second, there has been a tremendous surge in private hospitals due to the massive increase in the number of medical colleges and graduates. According to Dr. Kamaal Ahmad, there were only 9 medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh and around 1,000 doctors in 1981. Now there are about ten times more medical colleges and nearly 15,000 doctors.

Third, many of the doctors in Dhampur have rural roots. But, most of the doctors are educated in urban areas and are used to urban lifestyles. Hence, they prefer to practice in towns and cities.

Fourth, Dhampur is well connected with the national and state highways. The neighbouring 3 towns and 500-600 villages are completely dependent on Dhampur for most of the services including healthcare facilities. According to Dr. Aditya Agarwal, Nagina town, where he practiced earlier, is less accessible with weaker connectivity, less developed and has lower footfall in comparison to Dhampur.

Fifth, although most of the doctors have a business mindset, they are also involved in social service such as: campaigns to promote health, provide free consultation, medicine and 1/4th price of the required test for those who cannot afford it, as is done by both Dr. Ahmad and Dr. Agarwal. 

Sixth, Kalagarh Road acts as a central axis that ensures maximum visibility and easy accessibility for patients. Moreover, the clustering of private hospitals on Kalagarh Road suggests that in a competitive market, similar service providers tend to cluster in the same location to maximize access to customers and reduce risk as explained by the Hotelling Location Model (Harold Hotelling, 1929).

To sum up, a large number of private hospitals have come up in Dhampur clearly in response to the demand from the town and nearby villages. But the way they are established on Kalagarh Road, shows that competition might be shaping the choice of location of healthcare facilities.

Figure A: Estimated Share of Gross Domestic Product for ‘City-Regions’ (2022-23)

Figure A shows the relationship of the share of ‘city-region’ in the gross domestic product (GDP) with its population share. Kolkata is an outlier, as the only ‘city-region’ whose share in GDP is less than its share in population. For the ten ‘city-regions’, the aggregate share of ‘city-region’ domestic product in GDP was 21.1%, which is more than double that of its population share in 2011, which was 9.6%, reflecting the higher per capita domestic product, compared to the national average, associated with these large ‘city-regions’. Note that this is not all urban, as the ‘city-region’ as defined here, includes both urban and rural populations. 

But, unlike China, India does not estimate economic activity at the city level, except Delhi, which is a state-level entity, so, its gross state domestic product (GSDP) is available along with all other states. So, how was this ‘city-region’ domestic product generated? In this situation, the following simple but crude exercise was conducted.

There has been some effort to generate district domestic product estimates (DDP) but these vary widely by state, with some states providing recent updated estimates and others that have not provided estimates for over a decade. The top ten cities by population in 2011 were considered. Each of these ‘city-regions’ were associated with a district or set of districts (for Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata). The Appendix gives the details of the districts that each ‘city-region’ were associated with. For each of these districts (except Jaipur, for which the estimate was directly available), the 2022-23 DDP estimate was calculated in the following manner. For each district, the share of DDP to the state’s GSDP was calculated for the latest two years for which data was available (except the years 2020-21 and 2021-22, which were excluded due to the pandemic). The average share of these two years was then multiplied into the state’s GSDP for 2022-23 to generate the estimated DDP for 2022-23. For ‘city regions’ associated with only one district, the DDP is considered the domestic product for the ‘city-region’ and for ‘city regions’ associated with a set of districts, the sum of the DDP for those districts were taken as the estimate. The specific calculations are given in Appendix A.

Appendix A

 

ADDENDUM

Figure B: Estimated Share of Gross Domestic Product for ‘City-Regions’ (2022-23)

After the blog was put out on Thursday, I received feedback that it did not reflect the spatial spread of the metropolitan region boundaries for many cities. As mentioned earlier, this is a crude estimate, both in defining the city region and its share of GDP. Nevertheless, some adjustments have been made, viz. to Mumbai (including Thane and Raigad) and Kolkata (including Haora and Hugli) on the western bank of the Hooghly river and Bengaluru (including Ramanagara and excluding Tumakuru, which has its own urban development authority and is a smart city in its own right!). Other possible adjustments, e.g. in Hyderabad and Chennai, have not been made. Surat ‘city region’ is Surat district, not the five districts in the report of NITI Aayog. It is also clarified that the Pune ‘city-region’, i.e., district, includes both the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations.

A revised Figure B and Appendix B is provided. As can be seen, the broad pattern remains similar. For the ten ‘city-regions’, the aggregate share of ‘city-region’ domestic product in GDP was 23.9%, which is more than double that of its population share in 2011, which was 11.4%. For four cities (excluding Delhi), the share of the ‘city-region’ in the GSDP is quite high, almost at 40% or more for Hyderabad (47%), Kolkata (41%) and Bengaluru (40%) and fairly close for Mumbai (37%). All these cities are capitals of their states. Indeed, the Mumbai-Pune agglomeration accounts for almost half the GSDP of Maharashtra, among our most developed states. The other two capitals, Chennai and Ahmedabad, account for a quarter of their state GSDP and Jaipur, just under one-seventh. Surat and Pune are the only two non-capital cities.

Appendix B

 

For over half a century, the Centre for Policy Research has been at the heart of some of the most significant policy discourses in India.

From the Archives is an attempt to tell CPR’s history from its archival records and trace its journey. The series will revisit CPR’s research initiatives, publications, and interactions with national and global policymakers that have helped it mount the challenge of inclusive, actionable change.

CPR During 1984 – 88

The years of 1984-88 were marked by crucial turning points in India’s polity and the world at large. Northern India was engulfed in a series of anti-Sikh riots following Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and an agrarian crisis riddled the countryside. As for geopolitics, a protracted Cold War necessitated an ever-evolving foreign policy for a Non-Aligned country like India. Diplomatic ties with NAM nations—famously recovering from the ravages of colonialism—were crucial in this period.

During this time, CPR continued to develop research on the projects it had initiated in preceding years and introduced new areas of study in keeping with the times. The Centre pursued uninterrupted research on the themes of industrialisation, national integration and regional

cooperation in South Asia, and contributed to topical discourses of national importance with renewed energy. This research was communicated to the public through seminars, workshops, books, academic papers, surveys and newspaper articles.

Geopolitics

 

The Centre approached relationships between South Asian countries vis-à-vis the Superpowers in a manner that would protect the sovereignty and collective interests of India and its regional neighbours. To this end, CPR collaborated with the International Development Research Centre, Canada on a five-year-long research project. CPR also organised a SAARC-ASEAN cooperation workshop in New Delhi in 1987.

Banking and Economy

 

The State Bank of India instituted a Chair in International Banking and Economy at the Centre in 1984. The Chair grappled with crucial economic questions regarding the proposed establishment of Mumbai as an International Financial Centre, overseas operations of Indian banks and India’s foreign commercial borrowings.

The studies aimed to identify avenues for enhancing economic cooperation and trade potential within South Asia and between India and SouthWest Asia or the Persian Gulf.

 

Society and Politics

 

The Centre also conducted studies on sociological issues in India. The research on violence, with emphasis on communal violence and riots, examined the socio-economic and institutional factors behind violence and suggested policy changes to mitigate and avoid violent upheavals in India. Studies on reservation policies in the country were introduced during this time. The  research looked at the impact of reservations on the lives of Dalits and Adivasis (SCs/STs) and OBC communities, as well as the politics of anti-reservation movements in the country.

 

Food Security and Health

Two allied research areas, food security and health and nutrition policy, were also advanced. These studies remain relevant today. Research on food security looked at the endemic problems of rural poverty, unemployment, and sluggish growth in the agricultural sector, largely addressing the question of availability. Research on health policy dealt with qualitative and quantitative aspects of implementation to address the question of access.

 

Other Engagements

Senior Fellow Mr. B.G. Verghese led the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Barak Basin Project at the Centre, researching transboundary river water management and conflict resolution in the basin. CPR also continued its engagement with the themes of federalism and problems of governance in India.

Founder-Director Dr. V. A. Pai Panandikar led a survey on public administration supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) covering the period from 1979 to 1988.

This is the second edition in this series. Stay tuned for more!

 

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On 11 April 2024, the Eid-ul-Fitr day, I along with my colleagues Shubham Kashyap and Aena Rawal happened to be in Dhampur while we were doing field work for our study titled Forty Years’ Development Saga of Dhampur: Growth Dynamics and Regional Transformation of an Indian Small Town. Since it was a public holiday and we did not have any meetings lined up, we decided to go to see the famous Najibabad fort popularly known as Sultana Daku ka Qila located around 45 kilometers away. The city and its fort were built by Nawab Najib-ud-Daulah around 1755. The East India Company called it Sultana Daku ka Qila as the dreaded dacoit was suspected of hiding in the fort.

We were staying at the Eurasia Palace Hotel, the only fancy hotel in town, which also has two multi-cuisine restaurants. We came down around 11.00 am and were surprised to see the hotel lobby jam packed, mostly with groups of muslim young men, few women’s groups and families. All these people were waiting to get into the Ambrosia Restaurant that was already full. As we navigated our way out of the crowd, we encountered even a larger number of people in the front lawn, some just taking selfies and group picture while others waiting to go in for lunch when their turn came. We saw the hotel manager and security staff busy controlling the crowds of people entering the property. When we talked to the much-harassed manager, he said he was charging an entry fee of Rs 300 per person as the only way of controlling the number of people coming in the hotel that day.

After about an hour’s drive, we reached the Najibabad fort and that too was in a festive mood, with street sides full of parked cars and motor bikes, crowds of people milling around in new clothes out for a day’s picnic, and hordes of vendors who reached there to make a quick buck by selling fruit, snacks and beverages. We looked totally out of place in this largely muslim community of revelers. People openly asked us who we were and where did we come from. When I told them that I am writing a book on the urbanisation and industrialisation of Dhampur, they were very impressed and respectful. In response to my question: why have they come here on this festive day rather than sticking to the normal practice of first going to the mosque for morning prayers, then visiting family and friends and eating loads of festive home-cooked delicacies like kebabs, biryani and sewanyana. They said they have done all that and now they want to hang out with friends but there are not many places where they can go to, other than going to restaurants that can be pretty expensive.

On our way back to Dhampur, we stopped for lunch at an upmarket highway eatery called Tularams Grand Restaurant, which is also a sweet shop well known for its gulab jamuns and rasgullas. And that too was full to the brim while people outside waited for tables to become free. There were also a few groups of boys and girls in pretty clothes some as young as 10 – 15 years of age with money in their hands, just to get gulab jamuns or ice creams. While we waited for our turn to get in, I learnt that all these people came from the nearby villages for a special Eid a treat at this restaurant.

This is what I could make of it at the end of the day as to why so many people were out there looking for some fun on Eid day:

First, the proportion of Muslim population in Bijnor District is much higher at about 43% than the state average of about 20%. Hence, their presence in public domain is much more visible in sheer numbers.

Second, the Eidy (the cash gift given by the elders to the children) has increased phenomenally from what used to be 10-20 to 100-200 Rupees per child, and multiplying it with the number of elders in the family, it could add up to be a pretty sum of 500 to 1000 rupees per young person. This is a clear indicator of change in the economic status and enhanced availability of disposable income in most families, not only in the cities but also in the villages.

Third, going out to eat is a major life style transformation that is sweeping many parts of India. Dhampur town and District Bijnor are no exceptions. We often found groups of students, often celebrating someone’s birthday, at 3-4 fairly pricey restaurants of the town where we went for lunch. Many of these students also commute daily from the neighboring villages to study in the prestigious schools and colleges of Dhampur.

Fourth, there are hardly any public places where young people can hang around to have a good time. The only options are about half a dozen pizza and fast-food restaurants in town that survive on young clientele frequenting them. There are also several well-known street food stalls in Bhagat Singh Chowk in the center of the town. The only place where young people and families can go without paying is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Municipal Park with an open gym, also located in the crowded town centre near the railway station and bus terminal. The other nearby places they visit on Eid day are Water Parks in Nehtaur and on Noorpur Road, and Ramganga Barage near Kalagarh Dam.  But this is possible only for those people who have personal mode of transport like cars and motorbikes.

Fifth, the Eurasia hotel opened in 2021 is the new status symbol and the most attractive place to visit, both for the town people as well as for the residents of the nearby towns and villages, even if it is just to take pictures or to share a plate of noodles between four-five friends.

It is clear from the above observations that small aspirational towns like Dhampur must create clean and safe recreational public places to cater to the needs particularly of the youth. In larger cities, there are several such options like parks, playgrounds, restaurants, markets and malls. In smaller towns, there is not enough volume of business for building malls. There is also no open land available within the densely populated town for any such place making. But, a few parks and shopping arcades with restaurants could certainly be incorporated, especially in the new private residential developments taking place in the periphery all around the town.

Left: Young men in front of the Sultana Daku ka Qila at Najibabad on Eid day, picture by Pushpa Pathak
Right: Young boys at the Eurasia Palace Hotel on Eid day, picture by Shubham Kashyap

The study, titled “Growth Dynamics and Regional Transformation Potential of Small Towns: 40 Years’ Development Saga of Dhampur, India,” is a repeat of Dr. Pushpa Pathak’s doctoral thesis, “Industrial Linkages and Regional Development: A Case Study of a Small Town, Dhampur,” conducted four decades ago. Dhampur, a small town located in the western Uttar Pradesh.

For the study we prepared four sets of surveys: an industrial unit survey, an entrepreneur survey, an industrial worker survey, and a rural household survey. Additionally we also had a set of interview questions for the government officials and prominent citizens of Dhampur and Bijnor. Fieldwork in Dhampur extended from February 2024 to December 2024.

The very first challenge we faced in common was skepticism as to why were we collecting such detailed information? We had to provide a full explanation, including the fact that Dr. Pushpa Pathak had done her Ph.D. thesis on Dhampur four decades earlier, why Dhampur was chosen in the first place, why a repeat survey was necessary, and how the information would be used. The idea of a book being published on Dhampur was appealing to some, but others questioned us about how the book would benefit them.

Despite the above challenges, when we met government officials, entrepreneurs and the prominent citizens they were very kind in sharing the information we needed and welcomed us warmly. Many of the entrepreneurs gave us their manufacturing products as gifts. For instance, when we visited a namkeen manufacturer, they offered us namkeen, ice cream manufacturers gave us ice cream, and iron pot manufacturers gifted kadhais. Some of them also offered us tea and snacks. They were very indeed hospitable and cooperative.

Difficulties in acquiring a current industry list and identifying the actual functioning industries

The only list of industries of Dhampur town and its surrounding 5km was dated back to 1979-80, that too was based on a primary a survey and not from any secondary source. To acquire a current list of industries in Dhampur, we first visited the District Industry Office in Bijnor. We requested for the current list of industries in Dhampur explaining the purpose of list.

• They mentioned they don’t have specific list of industries all they have the units which are registered on UDYAM and will provide that list.
• They said they would send it to us later that day, but unfortunately, they didn’t respond. We had to call them again and again, and finally, a few days later, they sent us a huge list of industries.
• We received three datasets covering the years 2020-2021, 2021-2022, and 2022-2023.
• It included 12,678 units for the district Bijnor.
• The datasheet contained extensive details of both industries as well as traders including: Reg. No, Enterprise Name, Owner Name, Incorporation Date, Commencement Date, Address, Pin code, District, State, Employment, Major Activity, Social Category, Gender, Organisation Type, Mobile No., Email Id, Investment Cost (In Rs.), Net Turnover (In Rs.), Enterprise Type, NIC 5 Digit Code, Latitude and Longitude.
• The details of latitude and longitude i.e., location of the unit were missing of each unit or else it would have been easy to identify the unit.
• We filtered the data based on their location through Pin code of Dhampur and further filtered the number of workers employed minimum 5 workers and their major activities i.e, manufacturing activities.
• This results in shorten of the data.
• Later we called each filtered unit and asked them what kind of product they manufacture and whether the unit fall in the radius of 5km from Dhampur town or not.
• During this process, we encountered several challenges, including negative responses from some contacts. For instance, one individual responded, “Hum garib hai, hume madad kijye”, while many disconnected the call, suspecting us to be representatives of the income tax department, GST department, labor department, or other government agencies.
• Additionally there were issues with multiple registrations, complicating the data further. Some units were registered under names of multiple family members and recorded as having only 4 to 5 workers. This practice is common in small-scale industries. Field verification revealed that these units were functioning as one unit and employed more workers than reported.
• Finally, we confirmed that there are 18 manufacturing units out of a long list of industries obtained from the UDYAM website.
• Out of these 18 units, many declined to be interviewed, and we were able to interview only 8 units.

We couldn’t rely on the given list. Then we visited electricity office of Dhampur, explained about the objectives of the study and we asked them for the industrial connections and, they gave us a list 6 commercial connections with minimum 20GW utilization connection and we were able to track 4 manufacturing units of the 6 commercial connections. We called each of these units to verify what they produce and their exact location.

Proceeding with multiple lists from different sources—the District Industries Office in Bijnor, the electricity office in Dhampur, and a list from a study conducted 40 years ago—we pursued two strategies.

First, we visited the known industrial locations for on-ground verification. We planned our visit accordingly & after reaching there, we got information about other industries as well. Additionally, we drove along all five highways connecting Dhampur with other cities to check if there were any industrial units located along the roads. We would stop, introduce ourselves and the study, and make a request for the meeting. We repeated this method to gain more clarity on the list of currently functioning industries. This process was also accompanied by making calls to the contacts available to us and verifying them repeatedly to determine whether these units fit into the criteria established for the study.

Second, we engaged with various stakeholders, including government officials, entrepreneurs, and residents, to gather additional information on industrial units operating in Dhampur and its 5-kilometer radius. When we discussed the industries list with prominent citizens of the town about the industries, they were surprised that we were considering the “chota mota” unit (Micro and Small Enterprises) as an industry. They considered Dhampur Sugar Mill Ltd. (DSM) the only industry in the town. However, we explained that we were looking for industries that are involved in manufacturing processes, and they also added a few units to our list. Upon explaining our criteria for the study, people informed us about the industrial units they were aware of, which had not been included in our prepared list.

Additionally one of the entrepreneur and a prominent citizen of the town suggested us to talk to the The Indian Industries Association (IIA) for the detailed list of manufacturing industries in Dhampur, we called them, but they don’t have the list of manufacturing industries. This information would have helped us identify entrepreneurs and industrialists who are members of these associations, particularly those from Dhampur in the Bijnor chapter, and who are successfully running units in the town. When we tried to search their website the details of the industries were missing.

This is how we drafted the industries list of Dhampur, the more we looked, the more we found! The process of preparing the list was one of the major challenges and was followed exclusively during the first field trip. It continued in all subsequent trips until the locations and names of the units were repeatedly the same, and we could not find any unit later.

Challenges in connecting & building trust with govt. officials, entrepreneur & workers

1. Challenges in securing appointment with government officials via emails

We composed emails requesting appointments to the District Magistrate of Bijnor and the Chairperson of Dhampur Municipal Council but did not receive any response from them, so we found the contact number of District Magistrate of Bijnor on Google and called them and it was more effective when they asked us to come meet them. We went with set of questions and DM accepted it and told that we will get the response of each question in transcribed form which is very helpful for our study. Without facing any problem we also got chance to meet other government officials, we narrated our study and they praised us for doing such study on Dhampur and they supported us by providing us with the all relevant information and data for the study.

2. Meeting with proxy Pradhans

We also met both of the proxy Pradhan’s from our two-village study. It was very surprising to see the women elected for the Pradhan post, but just on the paper. When we asked one of the Pradhan, he said “innhe kya pata gaon or logo ke bare me”, and when we met them they didn’t even talked to us and didn’t showed any interest.

We easily met the proxy Pradhan of Sarakhthal Madho, but when we narrated our story and told him that we will be doing survey in the village, he replied “Kahe ka hum battaye aapko, hume kya milega”. Later he said “Jo sahi lagega vo battayenge” and there was lot of discrepancy in the survey, later we had to delete his records.

Contacting the proxy Pradhan of Allahadinpur Bhogi was particularly difficult. We called him multiple times when he commited to meet us in his village, However, when we reached at the village, he was unavailable due to his personal reasons and recommended us to meet his friend instead. Accordingly, we met his friend but the information which he provided was scattered & lacked clarity. After realizing it’s necessary to meet the Pradhan in person to extract right information, we initiated multiple calls & kept on chasing him for the meeting. He committed to meet us but was not available at the agreed times. Eventually, he blocked our contact numbers. We shared these challenges with the block Pradhan, who assured us he would facilitate a meeting with the panchayat Pradhan. Despite these assurances and our follow-up attempts to contact the Pradhan were unsuccessful.

Challenges in securing appointment with entrepreneurs

1. Individual units were contacted to request appointments. We faced significant skepticism; many entrepreneurs suspected us of being impostors.
2. A common misconception was that we were representatives from the Income Tax Department, GST Department, Labour Department, or other government agencies.
3. Multiple calls (typically two to three) were made over several days to secure appointments. Regular follow-ups were necessary to overcome initial resistance.
4. Entrepreneurs frequently canceled appointments at the last minute with remarks such as “I don’t have time now and let’s meet tomorrow”. Many were not present at the agreed time, necessitating repeated visits.
5. Despite having appointments, entrepreneurs often rushed conversations mentioning, “Please be quick, I don’t have much time”. This sometimes resulted in getting limited information and therefore incomplete data.
6. Some of the entrepreneurs whom we approached were reluctant to meet & some of them denied any engagement with the workers.

Challenges in engaging with workers

1. Engaging with workers in small units was facilitated by the cooperation of the entrepreneur, who encouraged them to participate in the survey.
2. The presence of the entrepreneur during interviews made workers hesitant to respond precisely specially when in terms of income and workers welfare benefits.
3. Communicating with workers at Dhampur Sugar Mill proved challenging due to their shift schedules.
4. The admin officer suggested us to meet the workers outside the campus as the workers were busy.
5. Outside the campus whenever we tried approaching the workers, they seemed tired from their shift & in a rush to reach home.
6. Consequently, only 1 out 10 workers gave their valuable time & answered our queries. We approached a parking guard and narrated about our research, he agreed to help us by asking the workers to cooperate & supported us a lot in engaging with the workers.
7. Some workers were not very comfortable in answering as they wanted to understand how it is going to benefit them.
8. Multiple visit outside of Sugar mill helped in building the trust of workers as they saw us coming every day for the survey.
9. Despite efforts, some workers remained reluctant to provide comprehensive information, that results in limitations in data collection.

Challenges in Data Collection and Geocoding Accuracy Using Kobo Toolbox

The questionnaire administered via Kobo Toolbox comprised a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions. Responses to quantitative inquiries were provided as numbers, while qualitative questions were answered via voice recordings for each question separately. However, in qualitative questions respondents occasionally addressed multiple questions within a single response, this made it hard to make a prorate data. To fix this, we had to listen to all the recordings later and figure out which answer went with which question. Additionally, we were finding it difficult to do geo-coding of a few of those industries that were located in the interior part of the town with dense buildings clustered together. Consequently, Kobo Toolbox showed low location accuracy, and resulted in inaccurate recording of the location of some of the industries.

Budget and Logistics Challenges during Field Visits in Bijnor and Dhampur

The budget we had for field work was ₹6,30,000. The hotels were expensive and there were not many options of hotels to choose from and get a hygienic accommodation under budget. After a tremendous search, we found a nice place, and though it was expensive, we were left with no alternate options. Additionally, we didn’t have easy access to transport for local travel which led to booking a taxi from Delhi to Dhampur and keeping it for the whole field visit, which was quite expensive. These two major expenses exhausted our budget, which led to the need to enhance our study budget.