Tamil Nadu, the most urbanised among the large States in India, has witnessed uneven urban growth. The recently released 2011 census data on urban agglomerations shows that, in the last decade, about half of the increase (about 7.4 million) in urban population has mostly occurred in four urban agglomerations: Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchirapalli. Chennai is now home to a quarter of the State's 34.9 million urban residents.
Chennai urban agglomeration had a population of about 6.56 million in 2001 and it has increased by 2.13 million to reach 8.69 million in 2011. While Coimbatore has registered a growth of about 0.7 million in population, Madurai has witnessed a rise of 0.26 million and Tiruchirapalli about 0.16 million.
Urban agglomeration is a “continuous urban spread constituting a town and its adjoining outgrowths or two or more physically contiguous growths.” In the case of Chennai urban agglomeration, Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts are included.
Compared to other larger urban agglomerations in the country, Chennai ranks fourth and it is less than half the size of Greater Mumbai. When compared to Delhi and Kolkata, it is less by about 7.6 and 5.4 million respectively. Coimbatore ranks 16 and Madurai and Tiruchirapalli rank 31 and 51 respectively among the 53 urban agglomerations and cities with million plus population.
However, in terms of growth rate, Chennai exceeds other major urban agglomerations. Greater Mumbai which witnessed 30.47 per cent growth during 1991-2001 recorded only 12.05 per cent growth during 2001-2011. Delhi and Kolkata urban agglomerations too dropped from 52.24 per cent to 26.69 and from 19.60 per cent to 6.97 per cent respectively during the same period. On the other hand, Chennai recorded a growth of 32.5 per cent in the last decade which is about 12.2 per cent more than the 1991-2001 growth rate.
Of the 25 urban agglomerations listed in 2011 census in Tamil Nadu, only four have million plus and three have half a million plus population. The least populated among the urban agglomerations is Vaniyambadi with 1,16, 712 persons.
Keywords: urban growth, agglomerations, urban rankings
Comments:
Then what about Salem city??
Kerala tops the list with seven cities/towns, viz. Kochi(Sl.No.17/ 2.12) Kozhikode ( 19/2.02),Thrissur ( 21/1.85), Malappuram (25/1.70), Thiruvananthapuram (26/ 1,69), Kannur (27/1.64) and Kollam (48/1.11). Though comparatively a smaller state, Kerala should be more concerned as the Opening of Retail sector will be more visible there if the state government permits any MNC based on the licence granted by The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB)! It is incongruous that just one town each only covered from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, viz Bangalore (5/ 8.50) and Hyderabad ( 6/ 7.75). Uttar Pradesh has also seven towns in the list.
It would have been fine, if the number of cities/towns to be covered for Opening up of Retail sector to MNCs were actually fixed around 20 by which only big cities would only have appeared in the list. Say, if the entry permission had been fixed for cities with 2 million (20 lakh) population or above, then only 19 cities will be falling under the purview of the opening up for FDI. In that case just two cities will be covered from both Tamil Nadu (Chennai and Coimbatore) and Kerala (Kochi and Kozhikode)!
Madurai have been neglected for the past 2 decades.It has very less area when compared to other tier 2 cities in India.That is the reason why Madurai cant reach 2 million figure.A city which has 5 lakh population in 1971 is having less growth due to the government ignorance.If the limits are expanded ,surely Madurai will cross 2 million figure