Cities unprepared for challenges: President Pranab Mukherjee

Hyderabad: At the closing ceremony of the Metropolitan Conference on Thursday, President Pranab Mukherjee asserted that most developing cities in India were unprepared to face urban challenges.

It is critical not only in the context of climate change but also with regard to provision of basic services to all the inhabitants. Facing a backlog, about 9 per cent of urban India does not have access to safe drinking water and 12.6 per cent do not have toilet facilities, he pointed out.

The President said that the 19th century was the century of empires, the 20th century of countries and the 21st would be the century of cities. Demographers estimate that 75 per cent of the global population could be urban by 2050 with most of the increase coming in the fast growing towns of Asia and Africa.

According to India’s census of 2011, about 377 million Indians, comprising 31 per cent of the country’s population, live in urban areas in comparison to 45 per cent in China, 54 per cent in Indonesia, 78 per cent in Mexico and 87 per cent in Brazil.

Urban population recorded an annual growth rate of 2.76 per cent and the 2011 Census reported a dramatic increase in the number of million-plus cities from 35 to 52.

More than 60 per cent of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from urban areas. The top 100 largest cities produce about 43 per cent of the GDP, with 16 per cent of the population and just 0.24 per cent of the land area.

“The first challenge for any urban administrator is sanitation, administrators must treat cleanliness as  non-negotiable . Pollution is another huge challenge in cities.  Unless we include conservation in the policy making and planning stage itself, the green deficit will always remain huge and impossible to fulfill,” Mr Mukherjee added.