Roberts, 2016) notes that this evolution reflects a more general process of _in situ_ urbanization across much of the region.

Two characteristics of this feature bear emphasis. First, this morphing of places is not a phenomenon that is happening on the periphery of existing large urban areas. Only about a third of the new CTs are close to existing class I towns (urban areas of 100,000 or more), the rest being either isolated or part of a group of smaller rural settlements. Second, understanding this phenomenon is important not only for understanding urbanization, but also for rural poverty alleviation. A critical element of economic growth is the rise in non-farm employment and incomes. Himanshu et. al. (2011) find that rural non-farm diversification is more rapid when neighboring urban centers grow and this association is stronger if the urban center is a small town as compared to a large city.

In order to do this, it is not sufficient to study the small statutory towns. While the share of small towns (i.e., towns with a population of less than 100,000) in total urban population has actually increased marginally over 2001-11, the share of CTs has almost doubled from 7.4% to over 14%, and within small towns, it rose from 19% to 36%.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics at play behind the sharp increase in the number of CTs observed in the 2011 census, and its potential implications in terms of policies aimed at supporting economic development and poverty alleviation in these small urban centers and their surrounding areas. The paper also tries to understand whether these settlements are connected to the broader urban economic expansion of the region or whether they do develop as independent nodes of localized urbanization process. The process of governance of these centers and their economic and spatial impacts are also addressed in this paper.

The paper is organized into six sections. Following this introduction, section II provides a reading of the existing literature on small towns related to governance, employment and spatial change. Section III details the rationale for the choice of sites and expands on the methodology chosen. Sections IV to VII presents the results along four main axes: section IV is concerned with the shift towards non-farm employment and the analysis of the new types of jobs existing in the towns; section V is concerned with the existing debates and practices around governance of CTs especially with the idea that some CTs should become statutory towns; section VI looks at the various urban services and attempts to assess which variations (rural/urban; state) explain differences in services. Section VII concludes with key findings.

# **II. Existing Literature on Census Towns**

The emergence of a large number of CTs during the 2001-2011 decade and their role in the urban growth has generated some interest as to what these settlements represent (Pradhan, 2013) and the reason for their emergence (Kundu, 2011; Bhagat, 2011). In spite of this particular status, there has been limited research on Census Towns so far. On the one hand, research on small towns has been centered either on small urban local bodies, comparing cities of different sizes but without a specific focus on Census Towns per se. On the other hand, rural studies, both quantitative and qualitative, have not highlighted the specific status of CTs.

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