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| November 29, 2002 | Friday | Ramazan 23, 1423 |
One-third population lives in cities: report
ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: One-third of the country’s population lives in the urban areas, the Pakistan Human Condition Report, 2002, showed.
The report has been prepared by the Centre for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution, under the auspices of the Planning Division.
This occurred mainly due to the increasing pressure on agricultural land which created unemployment in the rural areas and a consequent urban-ward migration, the report said.
This transformation is evident from the absolute change of urban population from six million in 1951 to 10 million in 1961, 17 million in 1972, 24 million in 1981 and 43 million in 1998.
In other words, the 1951 reported urban population of six million increased by almost seven times in 1998, and this change put heavy pressure on the urban centres, which led to increased congestion and demanded more resources for urban development and provision of services.
Another important point to note is that the higher rate of growth of urban population did not decrease the population of the rural areas, which also kept on increasing from 28 million in 1951 to 88 million in 1998.
This meant that the urban population had increased by 605 per cent, whereas the rural population shot up by 217 per cent in the last five decades.
This phenomena has led to several unplanned big cities in the country. According to the 1998 census, there are 23 big cities, each having a population of 0.2 million and above. Similarly, seven cities have a population of over one million each. The biggest city in Pakistan is Karachi followed by Lahore, having a population of 9.3 million and 5.1 million, respectively. The report said there were competing demands on the available land for expansion of urban centres, road and other needs.
Though the total population of intercensal period 1981-98 has been growing at a rate of about 2.6 per cent, the urban population growth rate is 3.5 per cent per year.
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