With major cities yielding various job opportunities, the contribution of urban India to the national GDP is likely to touch 70% in the next five years, industry body Assocham has said.
An Assocham paper titled 'Urban India: Growth, Opportunities and Difficulties', revealed that almost 300 million Indians living in major metros and cities would push India's GDP growth to 10% by 2011, from the 2001- level of 60%.
Urban India would emerge as a major epicentre for both domestic economic activities and overseas businesses that would pave the way for higher urban per capita income at Rs 36,000 per annum by 2011, which is a Rs 10,000 jump from the current estimates of Rs 26,000 per annum.
"Job opportunities for a large number of job seekers and qualified professionals in areas of IT and IT-enabled services, manufacturing, biotechnology will be offered in metros and smaller cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Dehradun and Jaipur," Anil K Agarwal, president of Assocham, said.
Urban India's share of the population grew to 27% in 2001 from 25% in 1991 due to migration of labourers from villages to cities for financial security and better standards of life.
Towns in India grew 16% to 4,368 in 2001 from 3,768 towns in 1991 and is expected to touch the 5,000-mark by 2011.
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