Recent report by National council of Applied Economic Research and the Future Group’s wing Future Capital Research throw light on the most developing cities and evolving cities in India.

20 cities are discussed and their importance in Indian market development. It will fuel growth of India regardless of economic slowdown.

379 million more people will be added to these major Indian cities. It will be more than the current population of the US. So these cities will create big demand for consumer good and services. Currently 30% population is urban. By 2016 more than 45% will be urban Indian population.

Cities are divided in three categories: Mega cities, boom cities and niche cities.
Mega cities are populous cities: Four metros Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Bangalore, Hydrabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.
Towns in boom cities category are Surat, Kanpur, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Bhopal and Coimbatore. These are seven in number. These towns are registering fastest economic growth.
The niche cities five in number are Faridabad, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and Jalandhar.

Developing India will have more than half of its households in middle-class (annual income $6000/~Rs 2,40000 – $30000/~Rs 12, 00000) category by 2016.

These 20 cities will develop at the rate of more than 10 percent and other cities will develop at 7.9 percent from 2008 to 2016. Twenty mentioned cities already account for 60% of the surplus income. Very good point is by 2016; only 7% households will be in low-income ($3000).

Within these twenty cites, annual household income varies widely. When annual household income (AHI) is adjusted to city’s cost of living, Surat emerged as country’s most prosperous city (4.58 lakh). Adjusted AHI of 4.23 lakh for Chandigarh, Chandigarh is second in the most prosperous city.

With this rapid urbanization, township planning and security will be challenging tasks for government.

Update: Patna is now 5th fastest growing city in India and 21st fastest growing city in the world. In June 2009,The World Bank ranked Patna as the second-best city in India to start a business, after Delhi. Source: Wikipedia

Recent news on rapidly growing cities:
Bangalore, Chennai, and Ahmadabad are the top in fastest growing cities in India.