To one’s surprise, India was more urban in 1950 than China as about 17% of Indian population lived in cities, compared with 13% in China.

According to Census data, Indian population in urban areas grew from 17.29 % in 1951 to 31.16 % in 2011.

However, China urbanised far more rapidly. According to a World Bank report, 56% of China’s population lived in urban areas in 2015, compared with India’s 33%.

If this trend continues, by 2025, 64% of China’s population will live in urban areas, compared with just 38 % of India’s population, according to a research from the McKinsey Global Institute.

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The Census data from 1951 to 2011 show the pace of urbanisation was second-fastest during 2001-2011. The urban population touched 377 million during this period, at an annual growth rate of 2.76%. The average growth rate of the urban population was 2.32% during 1951-61, which accelerated up to 3.79% during 1971-81–the highest urban growth in India. After 1981, the urban growth rate decelerated to 3.09% during 1981-91 and further declined to 2.75% during 1991-2001. However, the declining growth rate was reversed during 2001-2011.

“The share of agriculture in rural NDP (Net Domestic Product) in 1970-71 was 70.5 %, which declined to 29.9 %  in 2012-13. That’s the main cause of urbanisation. Higher growth of industrial and services sector in rural areas over the years than of agriculture has increased the share of non-agriculture in rural NDP,” said Pant.

Urbanisation in India is among the slowest in the world, added, Aamriullah Khan, director, research, Aequitas India, a public health consulting firm. 

“Fastest rate of urbanisation was in the 70s after which the rate of urbanisation has been slow. Also, urbanisation is entirely along the Western ports — Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. These states have urban population between 45 % and 50 %… Why is urbanisation not happening in other states,” questioned Khan.

However, despite slow urbanisation, infrastructure in cities has not been able to cope with demand. According to the 2011 Census, 17.4% of urban Indian households lived in slums.