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URBANIZATION IN INDIA: TRENDS AND CONSEQUENCES

P. Ramappa and R. Rajeswara

One of the most significant of all postwar demographic phenomena

and the one that promises to loom even larger in the future is the rapid

growth of cities in developing countries. The United Nations projections

show that the Worlds Urban Population will be 3.77 billion by 2010. It is

estimated that nearly 50 million people are added to the Worlds Urban

population and abut 35 million to the rural population each year. The

share of worlds population living in urban centres has increased from 39

per cent in 1980 to 48 per cent in 2000. The developed countries have

higher urbanization level (76 per cent in 2000) compared with developing

countries (40 per cent in 2000). Hence the urbanization level has almost

stabilized in developed countries. While the African and Asian countries

are in the process of urbanization.

Objectives

The main objectives of this paper are to analyze urbanization trends

in India to explain causes and consequences of urbanization and suggest

remedial measures to solve the problems of urbanization.

Data Base

This study mainly depends on secondary data collected from census

reports of different years, statistical abstracts and other published works

on population. It also makes use of the earlier research studies on

population and urbanization.

Urban Area

According to 2001 census of India Urban areas include two types of

towns. i) Statutory towns all places with a municipality, corporation,

cantonment board or notified town area committee etc. so declared by

state law; ii) Census towns places with a minimum population of 5000, at

P. Ramappa is Professor, Department of Economics, S.K. University, Anantapur 515 003, A.P. R. Rajeswara is Research Scholar, Department of Economics, S.K. University, Anantapur, A.P.

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least 75 per cent of working population engaged in non-agricultural

pursuits and a density of population of at least 400 persons per s.q. km.

Urban Agglomerations

Urban agglomeration is a continuous urban spread constituting a

town and its adjoining urban outgrowths (OGS) or two or more physical

contiguous town together and any adjoining urban outgrowths of such

towns. Examples of out growths are railway colonies, university campus,

port area, military camps etc. that may come up near a statutory town or

city. For census of India, 2001 it was decided that the core town or atleast

one of the constituent towns of an urban agglomeration should necessarily

be a statutory town and total population of all the constituents should notbe less than 20000 (as per 1991 census). With these two basic criteria (RG

2001) having been met the following are the possible different situations

in which urban agglomerations could be constituted.

i) A city or town with one or more contiguous outgrowths; ii) two or

more adjoining towns with or without their outgrowths; and iii) a

city or one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths all of

which from a continuous spread.

Growth of Indias Population

As shown in Table 1 the total population of India significantly rose

from 23.82 crore in 1901 to 102.70 crore in 2001 registering 4.31 fold

increase. Similarly the rural and urban population also increased from

21.24 crore and 2.58 crore to 74.20 crore and 28.50 crore respectivelyduring the same period. But the percentage share of rural population in

total population declined from 89.2 in 1901 to 72.2 in 2001 while the

share of urban population increased from 10.8 per cent to 27.8 per cent. It

reflects a gradual increasing trend of urbanization in India. The sources of

urban growth comprise natural increase in urban areas, migration,

reclassification of rural areas into urban areas and the change in the

boundaries of existing towns.

Table 1

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Rural and Urban Population Growth in India

(In crores)

YearPollution

Total Rural Urban

1901 23.82 21.24(89.2)

2.58(10.8)

1911 25.54 22.60

(88.5)

2.94

(11.5)1921 25.10 22.30

(88.8)

2.80

(11.2)1931 2789 24.55

(88.0)

3.34

(12.0)1941 31.86 27.44

(86.1)

4.42

(13.9)1951 35.92 29.68

(82.6)

6.24

(17.4)1961 44.0 36.11

(82.0)

7.89

(18.0)1971 54.80 43.90

(80.1)

10.90

(19.9)1981 68.50 52.50

(76.6)

16.90

(23.4)1991 84.60 62.90

(74.3)

21.70

(25.7)2001 102.70 74.20

(72.2)

28.50

(27.8)Source: Census Reports, Registrar General, India.

Note: Figures in brackets are percentages to Total population.

Urban Population and Towns

Distribution of towns and urban population by size class is shown in

Table 2. The total number of agglomerations/towns increased from 2795 in

1951 to 4368 in 2001. These towns have been classified into six

categories as class I towns, class II towns, class III towns, class IV towns,

class V towns and class VI towns based on the size of the population. It is

observed that the number of class I, class II, class III and class IV towns

showed increasing trend between 1951 and 2001. But the number of class

V and class VI towns declined from 1124 and 569 in 1951 to 888 and 191

in 2001 respectively. As per 2001 census data the number of class IV

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towns (1344 or 30.76 percent) is high compared to the towns of other

classes.

The proportion of urban population in class I towns with a

population of more than one lakh increased from 44.6 per cent in 1951 to

68.6 per cent in 2001. But there has been little change in the relative

proportion of urban population in class II towns as its percentage remained

between 9.7 and 11.6 respectively during 1951-2001. While the

percentage of urban population in class III, class IV, class V and class VI

declined from 15.7 to 12.2, 13.6 to 6.8, 13.0 to 2.3 and 3.1 to 0.2

respectively during the same period. Thus the above data reveals that

there has been continuous concentration of population in class I towns.

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Table 2

Distribution of Towns and Urban Population by Size Class

Year

Class I Class

II

Class

IIIClass IV Class V Class

VI

All

classesAbove

100000

50000

to

10000

0

20000

to

50000

10000 to

20000

5000 to

10000

Less

than

5000

No. of Agglomerations/Towns

1951 76 91 327 608 1124 569 27951961 102 129 437 719 711 172 22701971 148 173 558 827 623 147 24761981 216 270 738 1053 739 229 32451991 296 341 927 1135 725 185 36092001 393 401 1151 1344 888 191 4368

Percentage distribution of Urban population

1951 44.6 10.0 15.7 13.6 13.0 3.1 100.01961 51.4 11.2 16.9 12.8 6.9 0.8 100.01971 57.2 10.9 16.0 10.9 4.5 0.4 100.01981 60.4 11.6 14.3 9.5 3.6 0.5 100.01991 65.2 10.9 13.2 7.8 2.6 0.3 100.0

2001 68.6 9.7 12.2 6.8 2.3 0.2 100.0

Note: Excludes Assam and Jammu & Kashmir upto 1991.

Source: Census Reports, Registrar General, India.

Cities with more than 10 lakh population

As shown in Table 3 Mumbai is the largest metropolitan city in India

with the population of 16.37 million in 2001 followed by Calcutta with

13.22 million, Delhi 12.79 million, Chennai 6.42 million, Hyderabad 5.53

million and Bangalore with 5.69 million. The number of cities with more

than ten lakh population increased from 5 in 1951 to 23 in 1991 and to 35

in 2001. The newly added cities in 2001, to the list of cities with more than

ten lakh population are Agra, Meerut, Nashik, Jabalpoor, Jamshedpur,

Asansol, Dhanbad, Faridabad, Allahabad, Amritsar, Vijayawada and Rajkot.

These cities are not shown in Table 3. Of 23 cities with more than ten lakh

population Bhopal of Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest growth (1350

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per cent or 13.5 times increase) of population during 1951-2001 followed

by Visakhapatnam of Andhra Pradesh (1109 per cent or eleven times

increase) and Surath of Gujarath (1071 per cent or nearly ten times

increase). While the least growth of population (183 per cent) was

recorded in Calcutta during the same period. It implies that large share of

Indias urban population lives in Maharashtra Industrialization has been

responsible for growth of urbanization in Maharashtra.

Table 3

Population Growth in Large Cities/Towns

(In millions)

City/Town

Population Percentag

e increase

over 1951

State1951 2001

Bombay

(Mumbai)

2.97 16.37 451 Maharashtra

Calcutta 4.67 13.22 183 West BengalDelhi 1.44 12.79 788 DelhiMadras

(Chennai)

1.54 6.42 317 Tamilnadu

Hyderabad 1.13 5.53 389 Andhra PradeshBangalore 0.79 5.69 620 KarnatakaAhmedabad 0.88 4.52 414 GujaratPune 0.61 3.75 515 MaharashtraKanpur 0.71 2.69 279 Uttar PradeshNagpur 0.48 2.12 342 MaharashtraLucknow 0.50 2.27 354 Uttar PradeshSurat 0.24 2.81 1071 Gujarath

Jaipur 0.30 2.32 673 RajasthanKochi 0.18 1.35 650 KeralaCoimbatore 0.29 1.45 400 TamilnaduVadodara 0.21 1.49 610 GujarathIndore 0.31 1.64 429 Madhya PradeshPatna 0.32 1.71 434 BiharMadurai 0.37 1.19 222 TamilnaduBhopal 0.10 1.45 1350 Madhya PradeshVisakhapatnam 0.11 1.33 1109 Andhra PradeshVaranasi 0.37 1.21 227 Uttar PradeshLudhiyana 0.15 1.40 833 Punjab

Source: Census of 2001, Registrar General, India.

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Growth Rate of population

The degree of urbanization in India can also be understood with the

help of the annual growth rates of rural and urban population. Table 4

presents the annual growth rates of rural urban population for ten decades

from 1901-11 to 1991-2001. These statistics reveal that the annual growth

rate of urban population is higher than that of rural population in all

decades except in 1901-11. It is also observed that the annual growth rate

of urban population steadily increased from 0.03 per cent in 1901-11 to

3.47 in 1941-51 and in the remaining decades it fluctuated and reached to

2.73 per cent in 1991-2001. The annual growth rate of rural populationwas high (3.05 per cent) in the decade of 1961-71 while that of urban

population was high (3.79 per cent) in the decade of 1971-81.

Table 4

Rural Urban Growth Rates of Population in India

(In %)

Census YearAnnual Growth Rate of population

Rural Urban Total

1901-1911 0.62 0.03 0.511911-1921 -0.13 0.79 0.031921-1931 0.95 1.79 1.041931-1941 1.12 2.77 1.331941-1951 0.84 3.47 1.251951-1961 1.88 2.34 1.961961-1971 3.05 3.24 3.091971-1981 0.69 3.79 1.331981-1991 1.80 3.09 2.121991-2001 1.68 2.73 1.96

Source: Census Reports, Registrar General, India.

Urban Population in different States and Union Territories

The data presented in Table 5 reveals that out of all the states and

Union Territories in India, Delhi, the National capital Territory, is the most

urbanized with 92.8 per cent of urban population followed by the union

territory of Chandigarh with 88.9 per cent and Pondicherry with 60.0 per

cent of urban population. Among the major states Tamilnadu stands first

with 44.1 per cent of Urban population followed by Maharashtra with 42.4

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per cent and Gujarat with 37.3 per cent of urban population. While

Himachal Pradesh is the least urbanized state with 9.8 per cent of Urban

population. Bihar and Orissa also less urbanized where the percentage of

urban population is 10.5 and 12.7 respectively. As per 2001 census, in

absolute terms, Maharashtra stood first with Urban population of 4.11

crore followed by Uttar Pradesh with 3.45 crore urban population. Among

the states the density is very high 903 persons per sq. km in West Bengal

followed by Bihar 881 persons per Sq. km and Kerala 819 persons per sq.

km. But the density is very low 13 persons per sq. km in Arunachal

Pradesh. Of all Union Territories, Delhi (C.T.) stands first with a density of

9340 persons per sq.km followed by Chandigarh with 7900 persons per sq.

km. While Andaman & Nicobar Islands recorded the lowest density of 43

persons per sq. km.

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Table 5

State/Union Territory wise

Urban population and Density

Sl.

No

.

State/Union Territory

2001 CensusTotal

populatio

n

Urban

populatio

n

% of

Urban

populatio

n

Density

per

sq.km(In crores)

1. Andhra Pradesh 7.62 2.08 27.3 2772. Arunachal Pradesh 0.11 0.02 18.2 133. Assam 2.67 0.34 12.7 340

4. Bihar 8.30 0.87 10.5 8815. Chattisgarh 2.08 0.42 20.2 1546. Goa 0.13 0.07 53.8 3647. Gujarath 5.07 1.89 37.3 2588. Haryana 2.11 0.61 28.9 4789. Himachal Pradesh 0.61 0.06 9.8 10910. Jammu & Kashmir 1.01 0.25 24.8 4611. Jharkhand 2.69 0.60 22.3 33812. Karnataka 5.29 1.80 34.0 27613. Kerala 3.18 0.83 26.1 81914. Madhya Pradesh 6.03 1.60 26.5 196

15. Maharashtra 9.69 4.11 42.4 31516. Manipur 0.22 0.06 27.3 9717. Meghalaya 0.23 0.05 21.7 10318. Mizoram 0.09 0.04 44.4 4219. Nagaland 0.20 0.03 15.0 12020. Orissa 3.68 0.55 14.9 23621. Punjab 2.44 0.83 34.0 48422. Rajasthan 5.65 1.32 23.4 16523. Sikkim 0.05 0.0060 12.0 7624. Tamilnadu 6.24 2.75 44.1 48025. Tripura 0.32 0.05 15.6 305

26. Uttarakhand 0.85 0.22 25.9 15927. Uttar Pradesh 16.62 3.45 20.8 69028. West Bengal 8.02 2.24 27.9 903

Union Territories1. Andaman & Nicobar

Islands

0.04 0.01 25.0 43

2. Chandigarh 0.09 0.08 88.9 79003. Dadra & Nagar

Heveli

0.02 0.0050 25.0 449

4. Daman & Diu 0.02 0.0057 28.5 14135. Delhi (C.T.) 1.39 1.29 92.8 93406. Lakshdweep 0.0061 0.0027 44.3 18957. Pandicherry 0.10 0.06 60.0 2034

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All India 102.86 28.61 27.8 313Source: Statistical Abstract 2008, Directorate of Economics and

Statistics, Hyderabad.

Slum Population

Migration is one of the important factors responsible for

urbanization. People migrated from rural areas to urban areas normally

settle in slum areas of towns and live in unhygienic conditions. For

example in Andhra Pradesh the percentage of slum population is very high

in some towns. Table 6 presents the data relating to cities/towns with

more than 50 per cent of slum population in Andhra Pradesh. As per 2001

census there are 25 towns with more than 50 per cent of slum population

in Andhra Pradesh. Of them 22 are municipalities and the remaining 3 are

Urban Agglomerations. It is quit unhappy to note that almost all people

(99.09 per cent) of Chirala (municipality) of Prakasam district are living in

slum areas. Similarly in Kothagodem (municipality) of Khammam district

as high as 92.93 per of total people are living in slum areas. Next comes

Srikalahasti (municipality) of Chittoor district with 76.05 per cent slum

population followed by Yemmiganur (municipality) of Kurnool district with

72.18 per cent of slum population, Kothagdudam (urban agglomeration) ofKhammam district with 70.38 per cent of slum population and

Dharmavaram (municipality) of Anantapur district with 70.23 per cent of

slum population. It is also observed that the percentage of slum

population is relatively high in Khamam and Anantapur districts.

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Table 6

Cities/Towns with more than 50 per cent of slum population in

Andhra Pradesh 2001 (p)

City/Town DistrictCivic

status

Total

populatio

n

(In lakhs)

% of slum

populatio

n

Eluru West Godavari M 1.90 55.18Narsapur West Godavari M 0.59 50.53Machilipatnam Krishna M 1.83 54.42

Narasaraopet Guntur M 0.95 60.76Narasaraopet Guntur U.A 0.97 59.51Chirala Prakasam U.A 1.65 50.94Chirala Prakasam M 0.85 99.09Srikalahasti Chittoor M 0.71 76.05Dharmavaram Anantapur M 1.03 70.23Kadiri Anantapur M 0.76 64.8Hindupur Anantapur M 1.25 50.29

Yemmiganur Kurnool M 0.76 72.18Quthuballapur Rangareddy M 2.09 60.33Alwal Rangareddy M 1.09 57.21

Rajendranagar Rangareddy M 1.43 58.79Siddipet Medak M 0.62 55.03Sangareddy Medak M 0.57 50.30Nizamabad Nizamabad M 2.87 57.15Adilabad Adilabad M 1.09 58.54Mancherial Adilabad M 0.70 69.88Kakaznagar Adilabad M 0.60 65.82

Jagtial Karimnagar M 0.85 59.36Kothagudam Khammam UA 1.06 70.38Kothagudam Khammam M 0.80 92.93Palvancha Khammam M 0.69 60.29

Note: M = Municipality, UA = Urban agglomeration.

Source: Statistical Abstract 2008, Directorate of Economics and

Statistics, Hyderabad.

Causes of Urbanization

It is noticed that demographic explosion is a major factor

responsible for urbanization. The other important factor is rural urban

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migration. The development strategies of the past few decades (with their

emphasis on industrial modernization, technological sophistication and

metropolitan growth) created a substantial geographic imbalance in

economic opportunities and contributed significantly to the steadily

accelerating influence of rural migrants into urban areas. The

development of port towns/cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and

Visakhapatnam attracted many people from different places. The places of

worship have turned into big cities and resulted in urbanization.

Development of educational centres further induced the growth of urban

areas.

Another important reason is increase in the number of cities with

more than 10 lakh population. Globalization, liberalization and

privatization (Kundu & Gupta 2000) are addressing negative process for

urbanization in India. All these negative syndrome forces poverty induced

migration (Mukharjee, 1993) of rural poor to urban informal sectors.

Consequences of Urbanization

The rapid spread of urbanization resulted in the prolific growth of

huge slums and shanty towns. These slum settlements in many casesaccount for more than fifty per cent of the total urban. Migrants live in

slums which do not have minimal public services like electricity, water,

drainage, transportation, educational and health services. Others are less

fortunate as they are homeless and living on the pavements. Increased

densities in slums could cause enormous problems like congestion and

pollution for urban people.

Due to rural-urban migration and urbanization the supply of workers

in urban formal and informal sectors far exceeds the demand resulting in

high rates of unemployment. In the recent past, rural-urban migration was

viewed favourably in the economic development literature (Lewis theory).

On the contrary, migration today must be seen as the major factor

contributing to the ubiquitous phenomenon of urban surplus labour, as a

force that continues to exerbate already serious urban unemployment

problems caused by economic and structural imbalances between urban

and rural areas.

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Release of industrial effluents into waterways and heavy traffic in

cities cause water pollution and air pollution which adversely affect human

health. Urbanization destroys the values, culture, and conventions of the

society and leads to crimes, violence, juvenile delinquency, drug addiction,

alcoholism, depression, suicidal tendencies, restlessness, social unrest,

prostitution etc. Administrative problems like controlling crime, violence,

traffic, protecting life and property will also arise.

Class 1 cities such as Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi, Madras etc. have

reached saturation level of employment capacity (Kundu, 1997). These

large cities cannot absorb the rural migrants of landless illiterates,

unskilled agricultural labourers. Uncontrolled urbanization also led to

environmental degradation. The urban informal sector where illiterate and

non-skill migrants employed become inefficient and less productive

(Kundu & Gupta, 1996).

Suggestions

It is vitally important that the imbalances in economic opportunities

between rural and urban areas must be minimized. Otherwise the influx of

people into urban areas not only gives rise to socio-economic problems inthe cities but may also eventually create problems of labour shortage in

rural areas. The government policies should focus on income generation

both farm and non-farm, employment growth, health delivery, educational

improvement, infrastructure development like electiricty, water, roads etc.

and the provision of other rural development amenities.

Population growth in urban areas especially in class I cities should

be controlled and minimized. To reduce congestion and overcrowding,

there should be dispersal of industries by establishing new industrial

centers and towns on the periphery of the metropolis. Growth efforts and

investment should be directed towards small cities which have been

neglected so far. Balanced rural and urban planning is necessary. Raw

materials should be processed in rural areas and then transferred to urban

areas. Proper urban planning and housing is also necessary for slum

people.

References

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1. Kundu, A. (1983), Theories of city size distribution and Indian urban

structure A Reappraisal, Economic and Political Weekly, 18(3).

2. Bhagat, R.B. (1992), Components of Urban Growth in India with

reference to Haryana: Findings from recent census, Nagarlok, vol. 25,

No.3.

3. Todaro, M.P. (1993), Economic Development in the Third World,

Hyderabad: Orient Longman Ltd.

4. Pathak, P and Mehta, D. (1995), Recent Trends in Urbanization and

Rural-Urban Migration in India: Some Explanations and Projections,

Urban India, vol. 15, No.1.

5. Kundu, A. Gupta, (1996), Migration, Urbanization and Regional

Inequality, Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (52), December 26.

6. Datta, Pranati (2006), Urbanization in India, Paper submitted to

European Population Conference, June 21-24.

7. Brockerhoff, M. (1999), Urban Growth in Developing countries: A

review of projections and predictions, Population and Development

Review, vol. 25, No.4.

8. Kundu, A. (2000), Globalizing Gujarat: Urbanization, Employment and

Poverty, Economic and Political Weekly, August 26.

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