The latest July 2025 World Bank–Government of India report reveals that by 2050, 951 million Bharatiyas (54 per cent of the total population) will reside in cities and towns. This number will swell to 1.1 billion by 2070. Urban India is the engine of growth, employment and innovation. Indian cities and towns already account for the world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem; by 2030 they will account for more than 70 per cent of all new employment, and their share of national GDP will be 70 per cent.

This leads to the moot question — are Indian cities and towns future-proofed to meet fast-track urbanisation when more than half of the country’s population will be residing in urban Bharat by 2050, contributing to more than 80 per cent of Bharat’s GDP?

City Number 1

The future-proofing readiness of the cities to meet the challenges of making Viksit Bharat by 2047 is at the crux of this new series named Urban Quest. As part of the series, every week I analyse one city. The first set of cities taken up for a deep dive, alphabetically, are those which are already megacities (10 million-plus population) or are on the verge of becoming one.

And the city that selects itself automatically in the urban quest is the Manchester of India — Ahmedabad. The city assumes greater salience because of the following:

Host City of the Centenary Commonwealth Games: On 26 November 2025, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth Games held at Glasgow formally anointed Ahmedabad as the host city of the Centenary Commonwealth Games 2030. As the Government of India has already submitted the intent for Ahmedabad to host the Summer Olympics 2036, the Commonwealth Games will be a precursor to showcase future readiness for the Olympics.

Megacity: As per the United Nations, Ahmedabad’s 2025 population has reached 9.3 million, while that of Gandhinagar, its twin city, is 1.62 million. This brings the population of the combined urban area to 10.92 million, making it a megacity five years ahead of projections.

Driver to Make Viksit Bharat by 2047: Traditionally known as the Manchester of India, the city has fast-tracked its growth as a multisector manufacturing and export hub and as a global services centre with the establishment of GIFT City. In 2011, Forbes ranked the city as the third-fastest-growing city of the decade globally. Ahmedabad has not looked back since then.

Massive Infrastructure Push: Though gaps remain, the city is ahead of other Indian metropolises in fast-tracking physical and social infrastructure.

Deep Dive

This edition of Urban Quest offers a comprehensive deep dive into Ahmedabad as it exists today and the promise it holds in contributing significantly to making Bharat a developed nation. As it has already been projected as the global sporting hub of Bharat, the piece also identifies the gaps in the city’s preparedness to make it future-ready and provides a pathway to fill these gaps rapidly.

In a nutshell, the story in this piece is where Ahmedabad stands today and where — and how — it must reach quickly to meet the aspirations of the city, the state and the country by 2030 (when it hosts the Commonwealth Games), 2036 (the year it wishes to host the Olympic Games) and 2047 (when Bharat must become a viksit nation).

The Count

Ahmedabad crossed 1 million population in 1955. It took two more decades for the city’s population to reach two million in 1975, but thereafter the growth accelerated to four million in 1994, six million in 2009 and eight million in 2020. As per........

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