Pessimism Over India's Urban Future

The Prime Minister's claim that the 21st century will be India's century seems doubtful given the 'squalid' rural village conditions and 'urban hellholes.'

1 minute read

January 26, 2006, 6:00 AM PST

By David Gest

"If this is what 21st-century India is going to look like, we have had it. The towns had grown organically from the villages they once were without any sign of urban planning. Open drains, dung, flies and cattle remained from village days but where in old times garbage would have been organic it is now plastic and a permanent part of the scenery, since absent along with town planning was any sign of municipal governance."

"Village life in India is squalid but heaven compared with the urban hellholes that you now see across India...By the middle of the 21st century it is estimated that more than 70 per cent of Indians will live in urban centres. This is likely to cause a crisis of nightmarish proportions and there is no sign that anyone up there has seen the horror at the end of the tunnel."

FULL STORY: The zeroes in 'Indiaâ€™s Century'

Sunday, January 22, 2006 in The Indian Express

Community / Economic Development Infrastructure India

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