A first of its kind study on the state of India’s small towns – those with a population of less than one lakh – has come up with a grim picture of these mushrooming urban settlements.
Though the numbers of such towns have grown by 157 % -- from 2223 in 1961 to 5705 in 2011, they have “enormous backlogs” when it comes to basic infrastructure and socio-economic indicators vis-à-vis metro cities with a million plus population, according to the study done during 2015-16 by National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), an autonomous body under the union urban development ministry.