In the equity perspective every citizen of any country/nation has equal right to live a decent
life irrespective of his/her location, caste, gender, religion, occupation etc. But in reality
inequality is a persistent phenomenon in everyday life of people especially those living in
developing countries such as India. Particularly in case of location, the standards of living of
people living in rural and urban location widely differ. Rural people constantly face locational
disadvantage, being in rural area where the access to basic amenities is inadequate. As a
matter of fact, in the Gandhian perspective, the real India lives in villages. But policy makers
have been constantly undermined the above fact and neglected rural areas in the development
effort. Theoretically it is argued that the urban bias in policy and allocation of resources is the
reason behind the locational disadvantage of the rural people. In this regard, the President of
India advocated that provision of urban amenities in rural areas is an essential component of
rural development.
In this context the present paper is an attempt to examine the levels of deprivation of rural
people in terms of their access to basic amenities like, housing, drinking water, sanitation etc.
And also it evaluates the degree of relative disadvantage of rural people when compared with
their urban counterparts. Finally, the paper examines the associated factors related to the
locational disadvantage of the rural people. The paper follows the framework of Sen’s
Capability Approach to development.