Half of the global population will live in cities by the end of this year for the first time in human history while the percentage of urbanised in India will only be 29 per cent, a latest projections by the United Nations show.
The report predicts that the number of people living in urban areas would rise to 70 per cent by 2050.
Currently, 3.3 billion people of estimated population of 6.4 billion are living in urban areas and their number would double to 6.4 billion by 2050 when some 9.2 billion people are expected to inhabit the earth, the report said.
But the United Nations says there is nothing to worry about it as urbanisation shows the dynamism of the economies and rich societies are among the highly urbanised.
The report released on Tuesday said that even then India would still be not as urbanised as China where currently 40 per cent people live in cities and their number is projected to go up to 70 per cent or one billion people by 2050.
Releasing latest projections on urbanisation, Director of Department of Economic and Social Affairs' Population Division Hania Zlotnik stressed that the migration to urban areas would continue in India despite attempts by the Indian planners to prevent people from moving to cities.
Indian planners, she said, should be trying to foster economic dynamism in rural areas where 70 per cent of the population lives and rural development implies improving agriculture and establishment of agro industries.
That would mean fewer people would be needed in that sector which, in turn, would require excess labour to be moved to non farm employment which is available mostly in cities.
