The urban explosion: Can India's cities withstand what's coming?

Rural to urban migration in India, which started primarily after Independence, has been gaining greater momentum in the last few decades, with the fragmentation of agricultural land, enhancement of rural unemployment being the driving factors.

Experts are now warning that India's urban headcount is likely to surge by 70 million in the next 20 years-considering that as things stand our urban sector is already reeling under the burden of excessive population, the kind of lethal pressure this surge is likely to impose on our towns and cities can well be imagined.

According to World Bank estimates, by 2036, India's towns and cities will be home to 600 million people, or 40 percent of the population, up from 31 percent in 2011, with urban areas contributing almost 70 percent to GDP. By 2050, this figure is expected to jump to 800 million, thereby posing a challenge that has to be planned for and tackled on an urgent basis.

It is all very well for our leaders to speak about the nation's economy growing to become the third largest in the world, yet the reality is that there is a disconnect between India's economic ambitions and the capacities of its urban local bodies, which, unless rectified, would be a big handicap to such ambitions, and create the paradox of a booming economy offering a poor quality of life to the citizens in general.

Experts have urged that, in order to overcome the pressure, the nation must immediately embark on empowering our municipal corporations so that they can take up the challenge. The requisite infrastructure to accommodate such growth has to be built, a feat which the State by itself cannot perform and must strike partnership with the private sector in order to do so.

The population growth will increase the need for accommodation, and the danger is very real that rather than have genuine residential areas, our urban conglomerates might instead see the spread of slum complexes. Transport will be another issue, and alternative systems of rapid transit will have to be envisioned, especially for burgeoning metropolises like Guwahati.

It is heartening to note that the Union Ministry of Housing is aware of the challenge and has already set up an Urban Challenge Fund, which is intended to catalyse this transformation with a mix of 25 percent public sector seed funding, 50 percent market capital, and 25 percent State contribution.

However, mere revitalisation of existing infrastructure, which appears to be the immediate goal of the Ministry, will surely not be enough to accommodate such a huge increase in the population, and expansion by creating new infrastructure, and recourse to measures such as building more satellite townships, etc., will have to be taken if the lethal pressure on the urban sector is to be effectively dealt with.