Trend in patterns of urbanization in Andhra Pradesh

Although India is one of the less urbanized countries of the world with only 27.78 per cent of her population living in urban agglomerations/towns. The urban population of India had already crossed the 285 million mark by 2001 by 2030, more than 50 per cent of India's population is expected to live in urban areas and this country is facing a serious crisis of urban growth at the present time. Whereas urbanization has been an instrument of economic, social and political progress, it has led to serious socio-economic problems. Population living in urban areas in Andhra Pradesh according to 2001 Census was 27.08% (2.05 crore) compared to the 27.78% at all -India level. The state's urban population increased to 2.85 crore by2011 constituting 33.49%of the total population which is above the national average of 31.2%. Andhra Pradesh stands third among the four southern states in terms of the degree of urbanization in recent years. It is evident from the data that three out of 13 districts stand out prominently as highly urbanized when compared with other districts for the period under consideration. These are the districts of Visakhapatnam, Krishna, and Guntur. The data for the earlier decades i.e., 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001 also confirm that these three districts have registered higher proportions of urban population. The most important and surprising feature, that is observed in 2011 census is that the relatively backward districts such as Chittoor, Cuddapah, Kurnool and Anantapur have higherst proportion of urban population. The growth of population in Urban Agglomerations and Class I Cities in Seemandhra State during 2001-2011 show that there are 33 Urban Agglomerations and Class 1 cities in the state. Out of these 33 cities the highest rate of growth is recorded in Chittoor (74%), Madanapalli (67%) and Vijayawada (60.2%), and Tirupati (51.54%) while the low rate of growth is registered in cities like Chirala, Bhimavaram, Gudivada, Machilipatnam, Tenali and Guntakal. However, the negative rate of growth is observed in case of some cities such as Chilakaluripeta, Tadiparthi, Kavali and Tadepalligudem etc. in order to develop the cities at an integrated manner in the state of Seermandhra the following aspects may be considered.