Urbanisation In India: A long way to go

While the global average of urbanisation is expected to rise from 46.6% to 54 % between 2000 and 2015, that of India is likely to grow from 27.7% to 32.7% in the same period.

Though urbanisation holds the key to the growth of an economy, its pace in India remains a concern. UN data on levels of urbanisation shows that India has lagged significantly over the last 15 years. With urban area’s contribution to GDP rising from 37.7% in 1970-71 to 63% in 2009-10, urbanisation needs to occur at a faster pace. The centre, however, has grown sensitive to it and has launched schemes such as AMRUT, Smart Cities Mission and Heritage City Development.

While the global average of urbanisation is expected to rise from 46.6% to 54 % between 2000 and 2015, that of India is likely to grow from 27.7% to 32.7% in the same period, showing how the latter has not been able to keep pace with the world average in percentage point terms.

China, however, is expected to see a sharp rise. While it jumped from 35.9% in 2000 to 49.2% in 2010, it is expected to be at 55.6% by 2015 witnessing a 19.7 percentage point rise in urbanisation in 15 years.

Even Japan which had urbanisation level of 78.6% in 2000 expects it to rise to 93.5% by 2015 .

In the list of 32 countries that mostly comprises developed nations, none of the countries have an urbanisation level of less than 50% and 18 countries have more than 75% urbanisation.

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