Atmanirbhar India only possible if cities become productive: Puri

New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday said that an 'Atmanirbhar India' will only be possible if cities become "productive", according to an official statement.

Puri said that by 2030, almost 70 per cent of national GDP will come from cities as rapid urbanisation facilitates efficiencies of agglomerations.

" best-performing cities globally contribute five times more to national GDP than comparable Indian cities. We need to generate a similar density of economic activity from our cities to answer calls of our honourable Prime Minister in becoming a five-trillion-dollar economy," statement quoted Puri as saying.

dressing inaugural session of 'Connect Karo 2021 - Towards Equitable, Sustainable Indian Cities' event here, minister also said re can be no doubt that India's cities will be key to achieving nation's development objectives.

five-day event is being organised by World Resources Institute (WRI) through video conferencing.

Puri, who is also Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, said even as cities become engines of country's economy, it is equally important to dress infrastructure deficits that will arise from rapid urbanisation and complex migrant flows, statement said.

"By 2030, urban population in India will almost double to 630 million. If we are to facilitate this level of growth, we will need to upgre our urban infrastructure considerably and horrific impact of COVID-19 on our cities has me this even more significant," he said.

re is an eight-fold increase total expenditure on urban development as over past six years (2015-2021), this figure is about Rs 11.83 lakh crore against Rs 1.57 lakh crores from 2004 to 2014, he was quoted as saying.

"We have not only successfully operationalised ambitious schemes, but also mainstreamed aspects such as climate change and heritage conservation," he said.

Speaking on verse impact of growth of urbanisation, minister said realising potential of cities is not just an economic imperative, but also an environmental reality.

"Our cities will be battlegrounds for fight against climate change. As recent IPCC report suggests, cities are major contributors as well as worst affected from climate change and this has led to Indian government successfully executing most comprehensive and planned urbanisation programme anywhere in world," Puri ded. PTI BUN TIR TIR