The Story of Urbanisation in

Indian cities have been neglected by the central government in independent India despite growing their financial strength with each passing year. The formation of National Commission on Urbanization in 1986, after 40 years of independence, was a beginning to shift policy focus on cities. It was followed by a series of programmes and missions in the next three decades. Seeing the state of Indian cities today, we need to step up our efforts

Editor

India is still largely a rural nation with nearly twothirds of population living in villages. Indian urban spaces, however, have grown in size and population in post-independent era but liveability of Indian cities has not improved considerably. Slums, poor infrastructure, and inequitable distribution of civic services are still plaguing the city systems. Four Indian cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru are among the 30 most populous cities of the world. Two of them, Delhi and Mumbai, are in top 10 at second and seventh position. Five Indian cities, including Chennai in the above list, have population of over 10 million. The first census in independent India, in 1951, recorded urban population at 17.3 per cent (6.2 crore). The last census in 2011 tells us that the population has grown to about 31.2 per cent (37.7 crore). The growth in urban population in six decades is almost six times.

The growth of urban population in India has been top heavy. If you look at urbanization in different states of India, the concentration of population is in only few cities of the states. From Assam, Nagaland in North East, West Bengal and Odisha in East, to Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in South, and Uttar Pradesh and Haryana in North and Gujarat and Maharashtra in West, almost all the states have urban population concentration in just a handful of cities.

However, as per a recent report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), three small cities of Kerala have secured a place in the list of the world’s fastest-growing urban areas. According to the report, Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kollam are the only Indian cities enlisted in the top 10 of the world’s fastest-growing cities. Malappuram secured first rank in the world rankings with a 44.1% change between 2015 and 2020, with Kozhikode ranking fourth with 34.5% change and Kollam standing at 10 with

The success of JNNURM is st ill debatable as many expert s ar e of t he view t hat t he mission’s out comes wer e under whelming. However , t her e ar e cert ain examples of ur ban inn ovat ions fr om In dian t owns and cit ies which came int o exist ence fr om t his Mission. The beginn ing of e-govern ance syst em at local level was an excellent out come t hat start ed making life easier for cit izens. Ther e wer e many pr oj ect s for pr oviding basic civic ser vices and facilit ies t o ur ban poor including slum r ehabilitat ion pr ogr ams which br ought about change in t he lives of mar ginalized ur ban cit izens. The Mission also impr oved basic infr astr uct ur e in Tier -II and Tier -III cit ies like bus ser vices and under gr ound sewer age syst em 31.1%, in the EIU survey.

What is u rban ? In India, a place is termed urban if it meets any of the following criteria: (i) a minimum population of 5,000; (ii) a maximum of 25% of the male working population employed in agriculture, the rest in non-agricultural activities; and (iii) population density of at least 400 per km2. In addition, every place with a corporation, cantonment, municipality or notified town area is also termed urban. The growth in urbanisation has three specific components: (i) natural increase in population; (ii) net rural–urban migration; and (iii) the reclassification of settlements as urban areas.

The question remains how these cities or towns are governed and planned differently than rural areas? The longterm planning and management of a city is governed by its Master Plan that is made for twenty years. Many urban experts have criticized the practice of not following the Master Plan whole heartedly by development agencies and hence, allowing haphazard urbanisation. Almost every Indian city is victim of this practice. Another criticism of making these plans is not engaging citizens in the process. While there is a procedure to take into account the views and suggestions of citizens through public consultation, it remains elusive in practice.

Another major problem is lack of financial independence of urban local bodies which usually run the cities. The contribution of local governments’ revenue to national GDP is less than one percent while in some European countries this figure touches 20 per cent or more. In the last seven decades, the major failure in urban management has been not being able to make urban local bodies financially independent. Mega Cit y Prog ramme After India opened up its economy in 1992, the leadership in the nation knew that cities have to at the forefront of economic growth. The government of India launched the Mega City