Beyond Urban Missions: New Report Calls for a New Generation of Cities to Drive India’s Growth to Viksit Bharat 2047
Bengaluru: As India strides toward its Vision 2047 aspiration of becoming a developed nation, a new thought leadership report by Primus Partners “Beyond Urban Missions: India Needs a New Generation of Cities”, lays out a bold roadmap for redefining how the nation designs, governs, and grows its urban centres. The report calls for a decisive shift from metro-dominated development and isolated infrastructure schemes to a more balanced, distributed, and future-focused urban system capable of supporting India’s demographic and economic trajectory.
Despite contributing nearly 65% of India’s GDP, metropolitan regions are under growing strain from saturation, congestion, environmental pressures, and limited livability. With 30 people entering the urban population every minute, the current model of concentrated urban growth is neither sustainable nor sufficient to meet India’s ambitions for Viksit Bharat 2047.
The analysis highlights that no Indian city features among the world’s top 350 urban economies, underscoring the urgency to expand growth beyond the largest metros. The report identifies 85 emerging urban centres across States and Union Territories that exhibit strong economic foundations, demographic momentum, and institutional readiness to evolve into strategic growth nodes. These cities are positioned to play an instrumental role in shaping India’s next phase of development.
To fast-track this transformation, the report outlines a comprehensive and integrated pathway for reshaping India’s urban development model.
It first underscores the need to strengthen regional and spatial planning frameworks, ensuring that cities grow in a coordinated manner rather than through fragmented interventions. A key part of this vision is preparing urban centres to absorb rising migration by expanding affordable housing and enhancing social infrastructure to support growing populations.
The report further emphasises decentralising economic value chains to build greater resilience across urban systems. Alongside this, it highlights the critical role of empowering Urban Local Bodies as strategic institutions with the capacity to plan, regulate, and deliver effectively.
