Economic progress of a nation is closely associated with both industrialisation and urbanisation.
Growing share of urban population to total population of a country is called urbanisation. Urbanisation is a process of fast development of cities due to migration of people from rural areas in search of jobs.
With the growth of medium and large-scale industries, several industrial towns and cities have emerged in India.
In 1951, about 17 per cent of Indian population lived in urban areas, which increased to about 33 per cent in 2017.
Cities are the main hubs of economic activities in any industrialising country.
Therefore, in many cases, the economic and social infrastructure in these cities become inadequate to meet the growing needs of the people. Due to this reason, in many large cities we find the existence of many slum areas (which begin as unauthorised settlement for the poor people migrating from the rural areas) with poor waste disposal facility, inadequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.