Answer:

According to 2011 Census, for the first time since Independence, the absolute increase in population is more in urban areas that in rural areas. Also number of million plus cities have increased from 23 (1991), 35(2001) to 63 (2015). This tremendous urban growth however is taking place with equally high slum population growth in India as roughly 17.4% of urban households lived in the slum in 2011 (Census 2011).

One of the concerning issue with the urban growth in India is that it's happening in the situation of lack of basic amenities like housing, health, education and social security to the poor. As a resulted urban growth instead of positive social development is becoming nightmare for people who flocked to cities from countryside in search of livelihood and living due to following reasons:

♤ Slow growth in agriculture and distressed rural sector is pushing the people to urban areas for livelihood in non-agricultural sector. Most of the people are poor small/marginal farmers or landless labour or artisans who cannot afford living in cities unless some kind of social support is provided by the government. Urban area in India starkly lack such facilities as a result urban poor has to survive in slums.

♤ Indian city planners increasingly overlooking the need of poor for low cost housing as a result poor are flocking to urban slums.

♤ Most of migrants have no legal identity hence they can not avail the existing facilities available in urban areas hence they have to live in slums for living.

♤ Little enforcement of migrants rights as workers as their coverage with social protection programmes of government mean for the poor, also left large gaps. Such condition push further poor into poverty trap and in abject conditions of living in to slums.

♤ Lack of formal sector employment in urban areas pushes the migrants to informal sector for subsistence living. Due to prevalence of low wages and absence of social support informal sectors workers have to live in informal settlements.