On 14 September, while inaugurating the three-day conference on ‘Urban Transition in BRICS’ at Visakhapatnam, Minister of Urban Development and Housing And Urban Poverty Alleviation Venkaiah Naidu stated that the Indian political class is now more informed about the challenges faced by the urban sector.
In the same speech he also mentioned that India is the least urbanised BRICS member. While 86.5 percent of the population in Brazil live in urban areas; it is 72.6 percent in Russia, 61.7 percent in South Africa, 44.9 percent in China, and 30.1 percent in Indian.