The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Tamil Nadu tops in urbanisation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 27, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu tops in urbanisation

Vani Doraisamy

The flip side: there is proliferation of slums, lack of sanitation facilities and hygiene

CHENNAI: Here's another first for Tamil Nadu, but this one comes with shades of grey.

According to a State of Environment (SoE) of Tamil Nadu report released by the Environment Department this week, the State has the highest percentage of urban population in the country: as per 2001 figures, 43.86 per cent of Tamil Nadu's population lived in urban areas as against the all-India figure of 27.78 per cent. On the flip side, Chennai — one of the largest urban agglomerations in the country — had 35 per cent of its population living in slums, against 25 per cent in general.

The SoE, putting together data available with various government sources, including the Human Development Report, the National Sample Survey Organisation and the Census Department, attempts a biophysical and socio-economic profiling of the State, especially on issues pertaining to environment. It reports things as they stood in 2001.

According to the report: "The increase in urbanisation is related to the emergence of a large number of statutory towns ... that satisfy certain demographic and economic criteria (that) are treated as urban.''

Though Tamil Nadu was the sixth most populous State (6,21,110,839 as per 2001 figures), the decadal growth of population came down from 15.39 per cent in 1981-91 to 11.19 per cent in 1991-01. While the national figures were 2.50 percentage points lower than the previous decade, the Tamil Nadu figures were 4.20 percentage points lower. The percentage of those living below the poverty line was 35.03 per cent in 1993-04, compared to the national figure of 35.97 per cent. Between 1993-94 and 1999-2000, this declined even further in Tamil Nadu to 21.12 per cent as against 26.10 per cent nationally.

Of the total urban population of 27 million, Chennai metropolitan area alone had 4.3 million and other class I cities such as Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Salem had a collective figure of 12 million.

Urbanisation brought with it a marked imbalance in rural demography. The report expressed concern over lack of "sanitation facilities, hygiene, sewerage, water supply and proliferation of slums'' as a result of the ever-increasing migration from rural to urban centres.

There were some surprises in the economic profile too. Surveys done in 1996-97 showed that Kancheepuram had the highest per capita income (Rs. 23,075), much above the industrialised nodes such as Coimbatore (see box). Tamil Nadu stands fifth in terms of per capita income: Rs. 15, 929, against the national Rs. 11,554.

While 43 per cent of the State's geographical area was under agriculture, and agriculture and allied sectors contributed to nearly 62 per cent of the total employment, their contribution to the economy was only 22 per cent.

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