It is audacious to assume that India will continue to remain rural and it will be almost blasphemous from an economist’s lens, to predict that India is likely to become more rural in the next few decades
Rurbanisation (reverse-urbanisation) in India is driven by tech-enabled business models and could very well be one of the most important growth drivers for the Indian economy in times to come
The belief and confidence towards India’s rurbanisation arise from the spiked emergence of new age technology-led models in rural India in the last decade
India is likely to become 43.2% urban (approx. 675 Mn people) by 2035 as per the United Nations – Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022. This urbanisation will be driven by growth in the Indian population as well as migration from villages to cities. The report said that “cities are here to stay, and the future of humanity is undoubtedly urban”.
India already has about 50 cities with a population of over a million people and this number is likely to grow in line with urbanisation trends. In fact, Delhi will emerge as the world’s largest urban conglomerate with a population of over 39 Mn by 2030. Going by the trends seen in the western world, urbanisation is a sign of economic growth. Most developed economies in the world have more than 75% share of urban population.