Statutory town
Topic: Human Settlements and Urbanisation in India · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Human Settlements"
Meaning
A statutory town is a place that is urban by law. It has an urban local body: a municipality, municipal corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee. Its size and its people's jobs do not matter. If it has one of these bodies, the Census counts it as urban. It is one of the two kinds of town in the Census. Census 2011 counted 4,041 statutory towns out of 7,935 towns in all.
Example
Mhow in Madhya Pradesh is run by a cantonment board, so it counts as a statutory town. It needs no population or job test.
Don't confuse with
- Census town: a census town has no urban local body. It counts as urban only if it meets three tests together: at least 5,000 people, at least 75% of male main workers in non-farm work, and at least 400 persons per sq km. Gram panchayats run census towns.