The cities have witnessed increasing rural-urban migration which has resulted…

Rural-to-urban migration into industrial areas is best explained through 'push-pull' migration theory: people are pushed out of villages by conditions that erode rural livelihoods — such as a shrinking rural labour market or falling agricultural output — and pulled toward cities by the promise of industrial work. A valid reason for this specific migration trend must be a genuine push factor that worsens rural conditions, not a factor that would make people want to stay in the village or avoid the city.

Testing each of the four statements against this push-pull framework:

• Statement B (disruption of the rural labour market) removes wage-earning opportunities within villages, directly pushing residents to seek work in urban industrial areas.

• Statement C (decreased agricultural productivity) lowers farm income and food security, another classic rural push factor behind out-migration.

• Statement A (deterioration in living standards in urban areas) is a pull-side deterrent — it would discourage people from moving to cities, not cause the migration described in the passage.

• Statement D (increased skilled workforce in rural areas) describes a strengthening of the rural workforce itself, not a deterioration in rural livelihoods — so it does not describe the kind of eroding condition that pushes people to leave their villages.

Statements B and C directly describe conditions inside the village getting worse, so they are consistent push factors for this migration; neither Statement A nor Statement D describes that kind of village-side deterioration, so neither is, by itself, an established push factor behind the trend.