Can India’s cities rise to the looming demographic challenge?
In Focus by The Hindu

Can India’s cities rise to the looming demographic challenge?

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 30, 202641 min

India is entering a demographic window of opportunity. For the next 15 years or so, our ratio of our working age population to the dependent population will be the highest. This is a historic opportunity to convert this demographic dividend into economic dividend.Now, cities are the engines of economic growth. To make our demographic dividend count, we need to create urban dividend. This basically means that our cities should be able to offer millions of jobs, host thousands of firms, and provide the urban services needed to sustain a large working population.Is India ready for this challenge?A...

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population. You also go on to say that there is a resistance to these conversion of these

services. Why would anybody living there resist this kind of conversion when they know that it's

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This is In Focus, the Hindu's current affairs podcast. India's statistical definition of an urban settlement literally doesn't count women's work. A place can have a thriving economy run by women. None of it counts towards making that place urban.

0:17

So we're underestimating our urban potential, first of all, by leaving out half the population. population. You also go on to say that there is a resistance to these conversion of these census towns to proper statutory urban settlements which would then lead to provision of municipal services. Why would anybody living there resist this kind of conversion when they know that it's

0:39

going to result in provision of urban services? So whether we take the young workers from different states that are coming into the cities and using them in a more productive way, is an open question. What we still control is whether they arrive in cities that are dense and productive or whether they arrive in cities that are just crowded and unplanned.

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