Greater Mumbai with a population of 18,414,288 is the top city in population; Delhi NCR is the top urban agglomeration with a population of 21,753,486

As per the preliminary results of the Census 2011, released by the Registrar General of India, Greater Mumbai with a population of 18,414,288 continues to be India’s biggest city, followed by Delhi—16,314,838 and Kolkata—14,112,536. These three cities are India’s mega-cities with 10 million plus population.

But, when we consider Urban Agglomeration (UA) as an extended city comprising built-up area of a central core and any suburbs linked by continuous urban areas, there is a change at the top. Delhi NCR, with the inclusion of Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad becomes the No 1 UA with a population of 21,753,486, ahead of 20,748,395 of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region comprising Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Vasai-Virar, Bhiwandi and Panvel. Kolkata has clocked moderate growth.

Bengaluru is now almost as big as Chennai. Bengaluru with an UA population of 8,728,906 (8,499,399 excluding Hosur) is now bracketed with Chennai—8,917,749 (8,696,010 excluding Kancheepuram). Strain on civic amenities and commuting woes are consequently high in Bengaluru. However, it is still an important engine for growth in modern industries and job sectors in urban India.

Hyderabad, which was marginally bigger than Bengaluru in 2001, has now become the sixth largest city with a population of 7,749,334. Ahmedabad at 6,352,254 and Pune at 5,049,968, make up the other larger metros. Surat at 4,585,367 continues to grow rapidly and had added over 1.7 million during the decade. Jaipur, with a population of 3,073,350 has overtaken Kanpur for a spot in the Top 10.

The cities that missed out on the million plus tag are Bareily (979,933), Mysore (983,893), Tirupur (962,982), Solapur (951,118), Hubli-Dharwad (943,857), Salem (919,150), Aligarh (909,559) and Gurgaon (901,968).

According to Prof KS James, Head of Population Research Centre at Bengaluru-based think-tank Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), there is still a significant north-south divide in population growth in India as seen in the 2011 census. "The southern states are showing faster decline in the population growth rate as compared to the northern states. As a result of this, there is scarcity of unskilled labour in the south, which is currently filled in by migration from other parts of the country", he said in a statement. Mr James expressed the view that the demographic divide and change and migration of poor unskilled labourers across states have the potential of generating more conflict within the country.

The urban section of the population with rapid demographic change resulting in higher female labour force participation would follow lifestyles different from other sections. Late marriages, increasing number of divorces and living together before wedding were the characteristics of rapid demographic and economic change in Western countries, and it would be interesting to see how things would pan out in such a scenario in India. It would be difficult for other sections of the population to accept such conduct due to religious and cultural reasons, he added.

Worsening sex ratio motivated by strong preference for the two-child norm with particular gender composition is a considerable challenge in terms of ensuring equal position of women in society. It will have significant future impact. India will have extremely different structure of population across states; while in some states the population age structure will be adult concentrated and will move to old age, other states will have still more concentration of child and young population. This implies that the governments need entirely different policies to tackle issues in these contexts, Mr James said.

Inflated population of Kerala cities

Revised definition of UA in Kerala has led to some strange results, with towns like Malappuram, whose 2001 population was a mere 1.70 lakh entering the Million Plus list. As a result, the population of all the cities of Kerala appear inflated and thus not comparable with the population of the rest of the cities in the country. If the definition had not been changed, the projected population of Kerala cities would be Kochi at 2,075,382 (against 2,117,990), Thiruvananthapuram at 1,251,936 (against 1,687,406), Kozhikode at 1,130,233 (against 2,030,519), Kannur at 844,754 (against 1,642,892), Kollam at 655,172 (against 1,110,005), Thrissur at 499,394 (against 1,854,783) and Malappuram at 211,732 (against 1,698,645). This projection depicts the relative strength, size and importance of Kerala’s cities more accurately.