Background: The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 represents a radical reform in the Indian educational sector with a learner-centric approach to facilitate pedagogical change in favour of equity and flexibility. Policy frameworks are ambitious, but operationalization — especially in semi-urban and rural settings — is patchy and under-assessed. The two-fold nature of rural and urban to the demographic structure of Osmanabad district provided an interesting setting to evaluate this differential rollout. Objectives: The present study was conducted to assess the functionality of NEP 2020 introduced in rural and urban schools of Osmanabad. The specific aims are to compare infrastructural readiness, pedagogical adoption, and stakeholder involvement in the two settings. It also aims to consider key drivers and constraints that influence policy translation in schools. Methods: A convergent (concurrent) mixed methods design was used. Teachers, administrators, students, and parents (a total of 80) were involved in data collection based on structured questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and NEP-oriented checklists. Quantitative analysis was done to check the data of six rural and six urban schools in terms of means and percentages, and qualitative information was analysed by thematic coding. Results: It indicates a rural-urban divide in the adoption of NEP 2020. Urban schools tended to be more digital, experiential, and stakeholder-oriented. By contrast, rural schools had fallen behind because of poor infrastructure, unqualified teachers, and parental disengagement. But in the villages, the embrace of early grades multilingual education was more natural. Conclusion: The paper stresses that though NEP 2020 presents a transformative vision, local specific strategies are required for its implementation, particularly in resource-poor areas. Closing these divides requires focused investment, local capacity, accountable governance, and continued community engagement. The results support a transition from compliance-based deployment to adaptive, equity-enabling deployment.