Name: Srinivasa. K.R.
Country: India

Year: 2025
Volume: Volume-12, Issue-2 (July-December)
Page Number: 460-465
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22206389

The economic dimensions of India’s urbanisation challenge are large, but the social and cultural factors resulting from the sudden urban demographic bulge also present a daunting challenge. It is believed that much of the socio-economic upheavals look potentially surmountable through poverty alleviation and job creation. It is in this context that one must identify the pillars of a sustainable urban dispensation. India is projected to add 404 million people to its urban population between 2014 and 2050. The annual growth in urban population in India between 2010 and 2015 was 1.1% – the highest among the major economies, according to the UN World Urbanisation Prospects report 2014. Indian cities already contribute more than 62% to our national GDP.
A city that has an advanced model of technology but is badly planned, with outdated legal frameworks or lacking a good financial model, will only aggravate the dysfunction in the city. A ‘smart city’ is a city that uses technology in a ‘smart’ way to reinforce the pillars of urbanization.”— Dr. Joan Clos, executive director, UN-Habitat.
At a time when the idea of a ‘smart city’ dominates policy discourse, India is faced with a very real urbanisation challenge. The socio-spatial hierarchy in the country’s ever-expanding cities is growing deeper, even as inequalities of income, access and opportunities remain un-arrested.