Essay on the problem of Floating Populations in the Metros

Floating population is the name given to that population of a town that does not live permanently in a town but breaks journey there for some length of time. ‘

This population comes to a town in the process of some work or touring. This type of population is mostly found in the Metropolitan towns, as, these are the hubs of businesses, centers of offices and also centers of attraction.

So far so good but, this same floating population in the Metros gives rise to a multiple number of problems to the residents of the Metros. The problems they pose are mainly concerned with their movement in the town.

It is this floating population which causes huge crowds on roads, in local trains, local buses and in all other modes of transport. It is due to their presence that there are crowds everywhere and all the time. These crowds can be sources of a lot of troubles.

They add immensely to the pollution of the town, they can cause accidents as, being new to the town they do not know the rules existing there. Besides all this, this floating population can be involved in crimes, petty or major. They can commit a crime and move away from the town, leaving it as a blank fire the police.

The metros can be helping these people as the road to a crime elsewhere, they may be on route to a place where they plan to commit a crime. The metro is thus providing them the necessary support in their career of crime even though unwittingly.

This floating population can also cause law and order problems, for, they can commit a crime and move away, and the police has no evidence of such and such a man living in the town.

All this indicates that, the metros that serve a certain population as a convenient medium of movement through the country, also suffer the brunt of a motley of problems created by this very population.

So much for the problems posed by the floating population, floating through the length and breadth of the metro. However, this same population has its advantages also, that accrue to the metro.

The biggest advantage that accrues to the metro from this population is to business houses, small and big. To restaurants, hotels, and shopping centers these people are a blessing and a boon. The business in most of the shopping centers thrives on these people – the floating population in a metro.

Specially those people who come from smaller towns, like to enjoy all the fun available to these metros. They enjoy meals in restaurants, stay in hotels, visit picnic places, and go to places of tourist importance. Thus, all these places flourish with the expenses incurred by this same floating population.

Besides all this, it is this gentry that helps to suggest the sales of the fashionable shopping plazas. The pleasure of shopping in grand shopping centers is unknown to them in their smaller towns and so they do not mind enjoying the shopping at these joints.

Moreover, in their smaller towns, they will not find the items they get here in the metros, whether it is clothes, dress materials, or anything else. So, for this crowd, shopping in a metro becomes a dream fulfilled. Could they have ever found centers like Connaught Place, South Extension, Karol Bagh etc?

Thus, the prosperity of these shops and businesses, small and big depends totally on this sector of the floating population.

Thus we see that, there are always two sides, two aspects to all that exists – the good and the bad. Even this floating population has its advantages for the metro and also its disadvantages. They are, on the one hand a cause of disturbance and scarcity and pollution, while, on the other hand they are a boon to sagging fortunes of the business classes.