Rural Tourism a Solution for Ghost Villages of Uttarakhand

Pankaj, Ashish Pant

The rural areas in India have experienced substantial changes in the last two decades. The share of rural population in Indian was 74.28% in 1991 which decreases to 68.84 % in 2011. One of the reason for the decreasing in rural population is migration from rural to urban area. The pace of rural to urban migration has gradually accelerated with each passing decade. As per census of India, rural to urban migration increased from 42% in 2001 to 56% in 2011.People from rural area migrate to urban area in search of better job, education and life. Uttaranchal (now Uttarakhand) was carved out of the state of Uttar Pradesh on November 9, 2000 as the 27th state of the Republic of India. It occupies 53,483 sq. km. of total land area out of which 86% is mountainous. As per the Census of India the rural population of Uttarakhand was 74.33% in 2001 and it decreases to 69.45% in 2011.Uttarakhand has a high rate of out-migration and majority of the population migrate to various urban areas for better education and economic opportunities. The reasons of out migration is due to regional backwardness, small landholding size, unemployment and under-employment. As the result of migration 33 villages no longer exist in the state’s map and about 1053 villages are completely abandoned and uninhabited and have turned into ghost villages. The present study focuses on the hill out-migration from rural areas of Uttarakhand, its reasons, it impact and rural tourism as a solution.