The document discusses the key enablers of urbanization in India. It analyzes data from a survey of 65 respondents who migrated to urban areas in India within the last 15 years. The survey asked respondents to rank factors influencing their decision to migrate. The statistical analysis found that employment was ranked as the most important enabler, with 38% of respondents selecting it as their top preference. Higher education was the second most influential factor, receiving 71% of preferences as the second most important reason for migration. Other factors like industrialization, modernization, and healthcare access received lower rankings. The study concludes that while multiple factors enable urbanization, employment opportunities should be the main focus of government policies seeking to manage migration patterns.

1. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
Daniel, Dhanraj, Gaurav, Girish, Sanidhya
Department of Building Engineering and Management
School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi
Abstract
The process of urbanization in India creates a better and higher order of infrastructures of
education, employment, modernization, industrialization and healthcare facilities. As per Chetan
Vaidya (2011), Urbanization is inevitable and necessary to achieve the 10% GDP growth rate of
India. As per that calculation India has to increase its urban area by 40% in the next 25 years.
However, the current urban governance and management of the services is far from satisfactory.
This study presents a coexisting scenario of migration that is ongoing in India. Post independent
India witnessed several transformations in different sectors. Due to unequal progress and the
apathetic approach of development agencies and the Government, a considerable proportion of
the rural population has immigrated to the urban places in search of better opportunities resulting
in many problems such as unidentifiable population groups and slum formation. Migration from
rural to urban has changed the nature and proportion of population and its supportive systems.
This paper describes how the migration is happening in the recent time and which the more
influential enablers among them are. If there are any significant enablers among the list, the
government policies for future can be made concentrating on those factors to get to the GDP goal
in stipulated time.
Key-words: Urbanization, India, migration pattern, government policies, education, employment,
modernization, industrialization, healthcare facilities.
1. Introduction
Urbanization is generally defined with respect to financial, civil and city development.
Urbanization is a course of action by which rural inhabitants get renowned into urban areas
either by incorporating them into existing urban lands or by changing them as town. People from
rural area migrate to the urban cities for several reasons and they need access to urban
infrastructures. There are several reasons which are referred as enablers in this research paper

2. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
2
they are the predominant factors of urbanization and plays a major role. This transformation
increases the number of people living in urban areas. Urbanization can be measured by the
percentage of people living in urban area of a country with respect to the total population of that
country. The logistic model used by the United Nations, the World Bank, and other international
agencies projected that India is poised for rapid urbanization, along with several other countries
in south and East Asia.
India is having a total population of 1027 million; about 285 million people lived in urban areas
(Census, 2001). The percentage of urban population has increased from 19.9% in the year 1971
to 27.8% in the year 2001. The decadal growth of urban population was 31.2% in 1991-2001.
The contribution of rural-urban migration is 19 to 21 percent of the net increase in urban
population (Table 1).
Increasing of density of urban population in larger cities is one of the key features of urban India.
The number of cities over 1.0 million population, in 2001, was 35 and its population share was
over 37 percent. The salient aspects of urbanization in India in recent decades are:
a) The inclination of increasing urban population in large cities forms a stack of people in the
same place.
b) Slowing down the natural increase of urbanization during 1971-1981 and 1991-2001 as
compared to 1961-1971 and 1981-1991; and
c) Huge variations patterns of urbanization in various states and cities.

3. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
3
The Registrar General of India has projected that the rate of growth of urban population in urban
cities will be 67% of total population growth in India in the next 25 years. Urban population is
expected to increase from 286 million in 2001 to 534 million in 2026 (38%) (Table 2).
Unequal infrastructural growth across all over the country has been divided the modern India
into mainly urban and rural. This growth creates a shortage or deprivation of the electric supply,
quality of education and health facilities, transportation, drinking water and other basic facilities.
During the past few decades with the collaboration of local and central governments, efforts have
been made to connect villages via roads. But only road linkages are not enough for the
population living in the villages. For ensuring the quality of services is more important than
facilitating local development. For example, the quality of schooling has deteriorated in the rural
schools despite government’s efforts to improve the education by recruiting teachers with higher
credentials. Meal distributions during the school timings have hardly been able to raise the
standard of learning as well as the number of learners. Few deprived or marginalized (either
below poverty-line, education-ignoring households or no option other than primary schools)
families are sending their children to the government run primary schools. Education is one of
the examples. For getting higher education people usually migrate to different cities and
countries. Similarly employment is another factor or enabler which plays a major role in
urbanization in India. Many people in India migrate to different cities and towns in search of job.
Mostly people used to migrate in urban cities of India to get the maximum opportunity of job and
placement. And again it increases the concentration of existing urban cities. Government policies
play a major role in migration of people, if the small town gets more opportunities of jobs and
education then new urban areas will be formed with much faster rate. Therefore it is very

4. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
4
important to channelize the policies or give some direction to produce these policies by
prioritizing the enablers.
Objectives of this research is to identify and then prioritize these enablers by running ANOVA
test and/or crosstab test on the data received by survey.
2. Literature review
In the course of this research paper, attempt has been made to find out the various definitions of
urbanization and its enablers which pre-dominate the rate of growth of India. Study is also made
on the urbanization history and its trends and pattern followed in India. This gives us a clear
image on what is really accelerating the urban growth rate in the process.
According to United Nation, urbanization is a process of movement of people from rural areas to
urban areas in the form of migration. This process also includes the physical growth of urban
areas as a result of globalization (UN, 2012). Urbanization is a process of the changing use of
land and the existing use of land for urban purposes where urban purposes have to be defined
(WATSON, 1993). He also tried to explain it another way taking people at center and refers that
it is the activities of people (social, economic and cultural) that defines the characteristic of a
place into urban area. Urbanization is a desirable process. Urban India faces a number of challenges
but it also offers opportunities and most important opportunities of employing our new generation
(Vaidya, 2011). There are three stages in the process of urbanization mentioned. Stage one is the
initial stage characterized by rural traditional society with predominance in agriculture and
dispersed pattern of settlements. Stage two refers to an acceleration stage where basic
restructuring of the economy and investments in social overhead capitals including
transportation, communication (Datta, 2006). The urbanization is the process by which villages
turn into towns and towns develop into cities (Sinha, 1979). The common criterion used by most
of the countries is population but it again varies from country to country. It is as low as 200 per
sq. mile in Denmark and Sweden to 30000 per sq. mile in Japan.
The Census of India defined the urban places on the basis of the following criteria (Census of
India, 2001).
(i) All places with a municipality, corporation, and cantonment board, notified town area
committee etc.

5. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
5
(ii) All places which satisfy the following criteria.
(a) Minimum population of 5000.
(b) At least 75 per cent male working population engaged in non-agricultural
pursuits; and
(c) A density of population of at least 400 persons per sq. km (1000 per sq. mile).
Based on these definitions several researches have been carried out on recent trends of
urbanization in India. Attributes of the settlement system need to be explicitly recognized in
allocating investments for development of infrastructure along with plans to provide an
economic base (Dhar and Sen, 2006). Provoke the urbanization for the development of country
and make relevant policies for the development (Kundu, 2011). Increasing trend of India’s
urbanization and growth rate of city population; an expansion of boundaries of existing urban
centers is required (Tripathi, 2013). Due to unequal development throughout the country,
migration trends and patterns are unequal. This is indicative of a distressing level, because
imbalanced migration is detrimental to a variety of services (Mishra et al, 2010). The analysis of
trends of population growth and migration in recent years reveals that the growth rate of urban
population in India is likely to slow down in future decades. Small & medium towns, particularly
those in less developed regions, would attract very little urban industrial investment & therefore,
would report low & unstable growth (Kundu, 2000). The main idea is that the contemporary city
in both developed and developing worlds needs to build a coherent picture of patterns and trends
of urbanization (Besussi et al, 2010). Redirection of investment is recommended to develop
strong economic base for small and medium city neglected so far. Redirection of migration flows
is required (Datta, 2006).
Based on the literature review; noticeable enablers of Urbanization in India are,
 Health care facilities
 New Employment
 Education
 Industrialization
 Modernization
 Family business
 Government Jobs
 Transfer of current jobs

6. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
6
3. Research methodology
A survey was conducted to assess the perceptions of general population of urban area on why
they have chosen to migrate to that city or what they think that is an important reason for others
to migrate. For this a questionnaire was developed which contained questions about their basic
information and their reasons or take on migration in India. There was also a question to rank the
contemporary enablers of urbanization to understand if they are all equally important or not.
3.1. Population and Sampling Size
For the purpose of this research respondents were chosen randomly between the age group of 18-
50 years old; the most prominent group of people who will be the deciding factor in migration to
urban area. Also, since we are doing the research to facilitate making policies for future and
considering that the modernization of last decade has affected the patterns of urbanization we are
counting on the most influential timeframe that is of last decade. The collection of data was held
in India from middle of October 2014 until November 2014. Samples were randomly selected
and the technique used is Stratified Disproportionate Random Sampling. A total of one hundred
(120) questionnaires were distributed to people via mail / by hand. From that, total of 80 were
replied and out of which 65 have been used for further analysis, which belonged to our target
population.
Literature Review
Survey(Survey Monkey ,
By Hand)
Survey Results Analysis in SPSS
Conclusion

7. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
7
3.2. Hypothesis
After finding out the enablers we will find out if all the enablers are equally important
or not, for which we will provide our,
Null hypothesis as H0 : All the enablers are equally important, and
Alternate Hypothesis as H1 : All the enablers are not equally important.
4. Data Analysis and Findings
4.1 Information about Respondents - Gender
Based on the chart above, we can see that majority of the respondents (80%) are male and this is
followed by female respondents which contributes to 20%.
4.2 Information from Respondents – Age group
The chart shows that 96% respondents were from the age group of 18-50 years which is our
target population. Out of 80 people only 3% respondents are more than 50 years old and only 1
respond we get below 18 years old. In our analysis, only the people between 18-50 years of age
were considered.
80%
20%
Gender
Male
Female
1%
96%
3%
Age Group
Less than 18 Years
18-50 years old
More than 50 years

8. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
8
4.3 Information from Respondents – Migrated or Originated
As shown in the chart above, there were 87% respondents who were migrated to the city / urban
area they are living and 13% people which were originally from that urban area. The respondents
which were originally from that urban area were not considered into our target population.
4.4 Migration (when)
The respondents who had migrated to the city were asked one more question to know when they
have migrated to that city. 50% respondents replied they had moved in last 5 years. 26% people
responded they had moved in last 5-10 years of duration. Remaining respondents were not
considered for this survey as mentioned in the population and sampling techniques head.
87%
13%
Migrated or Originated
Migrated to Current City
Originally from the City
50%
26%
4%
9%
11%
Migration
Less than 5 Years
Between 5-10 Years
Between 10-15 Years
More than 15 years
Not applicable

9. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
9
38%
20%
25%
12%
5%
Employment
Preference 1
Preference 2
Preference 3
Preference 4
Preference 5
4.5 Main reason for the respondents’ migration.
The respondents who had migrated to the city were also asked about their reasons to migrate to
the city, to understand if there are any more reasons / enablers of migration in recent time. There
were 5% responses stating they had different reasons to migrate to their current city beyond the
five reasons we had given options of.
4.6 Ranking of the significant enablers.
The next question was to rank the five reasons we had given from 1 to 5. The percentage of
responses for each Preference is shown below. For this data analysis only 65% of respondents
were considered who fell into our target population.
35%
43%
12%
3%
2%
5%
Respondents'Reasons
Higher Education
Employment
Modernization
Industrialization
Healthcare
Other

10. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
10
20%
71%
3%
5% 1%
Higher Educatoin
Preference 1
Preference 2
Preference 3
Preference 4
Preference 5
25%
4%
29%
28%
14%
Modernisation
Preference 1
Preference 2
Preference 3
Preference 4
Preference 5
15%
2%
22%
32%
29%
Industrialization
Preference 1
Preference 2
Preference 3
Preference 4
Preference 5
8%
3%
24%
20%
45%
Health Care
Preference 1
Preference 2
Preference 3
Preference 4
Preference 5
All the data set is analyzed using anova statistical tool and the we found that the most significant
reason for the migration is employment as respondent give maximum preference to the
employment. 38% respondent say that employment is the major cause of migration and
according to them the second most important reason for the mitigation is education with 71%
say that higher education is the second most important reason.

11. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
11

12. PRIORITIZE THE ENABLERS OF URBANIZATION IN INDIA
12
as seen from these ratings, we may say that Employment has received the most responses for
Preference-1; for Preference-2, Higher education is ahead with 38% responses. For Preference-3
& Preference-4 Industrialization has received 29% & 34% respectively. We may therefore
consider Industrialization is ranked 4th and Modernization is ranked 3rd. The Healthcare is ranked
as 5th as per this responses.
5. Conclusion
As shown in the ranking, not all the enablers are equally important. Since the responses of their
ranking are different marginally, we can say there are some significantly important enablers
which should be focused on while producing the governmental policies, From Anova analysis we
can say that the employment is the most significant enabler of migration to urban area, the
funding or new policies by government should be around this enabler the most.