India’s uneven development despite of increasing urbanisation

India's urbanisation rate, stood up with only seven provinces reporting a higher than national average in 2001-11 decade.

While Western and Southern India have been urbanising quickly, progress in Northern and Eastern India has been slower. It is in these two regions that we think PM Modi's smart cities concept could have the greatest impact through reinvigorating urbanisation and industrialisation trends in these states. 

The dedicated freight corridor planned for Eastern India has potential to correct the country's urbanisation imbalance, though the greenfield urban clusters under construction or planned have a strong Western India bias. Little progress is visible in terms of planning more 'urban clusters' in Eastern or Northern India, says Barclays.