With an urban population set to rise by more than 400 million people to 814 million by 2050, India faces the kind of mass urbanisation only seen before in China, and many of its biggest cities are already bursting at the seams.
At a time when the UPA government has been claiming credit for lifting 140 million people above the poverty line - McKinsey research report says that 680 million people or 56 percent of India lives below the "empowerment line" which means they lack access to basic services such as education, healthcare, energy, sanitation and drinking water.