Why did the British take upon themselves the task of town planning ? Give any two reasons.
(i) From the early years, the colonial Government was keen on mapping. It felt that good maps were necessary to understand the landscape and know the topography. This knowledge would allow better control over the region.
(ii) A careful study of censuses reveals some fascinating trends. After 1800, urbanisation in India was sluggish. All through the nineteenth century up to the first two decades of the twentieth century the proportion of the urban population to the total population in India was extremely low and had remained stagnant.
(iii) As the hub of the colonial economy, they functioned as collection depots for the export of Indian manufactured such as cotton textiles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
