This Paper has won Third Prize in the CoolAvenues' Paper-writing Competition - "In Search of Excellence" - for the Year 2005.

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1. Present Situation

Rapid Industrialization has put increasing pressure on urban areas. There is dramatic increase in urban population which has resulted in serious infrastructure constraints. Estimated population of India is likely to be 1451 million in 2021 out of which urban population shall constitute 37%, as against 27% during 2001. Numbers of cities having population more than 1 million are expected to increase to 53 by the year 2021 from present number of 35.
There is inadequate Urban Mass Transport System and numbers of personalized vehicles are likely to increase by eight fold in next 20 years. Requirement of Urban Transport, sanitation, housing etc has increased substantially with growing urban Population. Urban areas are expected to continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the deficiencies too will become even more pressing problems. One fifth of the urban population of the country already lives in six mega cities. The number of people without adequate water and sanitation services will grow unless drastic changes are made in the present policies and practices.

Though urbanization contributes to the growth process, by and large, this positive aspect is often overshadowed by deterioration in the physical environment and quality of life in urban areas on account of the widening gap between demand and supply of essential services and infrastructure.

1.1. Cost & Time Overruns

India needs a strong infrastructure support to grow strongly and since urban India contributes to more than 50 per cent of the country's GDP while containing only 27 per cent of its total population, the improvement in infrastructure will definitely have an impact on the GDP growth of the country and the overall development of its citizens. However, we as a whole India have found it intricate to handle all the projects without costing us heavily in terms of both time and cost overruns.

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* Contributed by -
Gulbahar Singh & Ruchi Katiyar,
PGDIM - 2006,
NITIE, Mumbai.