I welcome you all to the launch of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. There is no doubt that India by and large still lives in our villages. But the development process of the past five decades has made a significant difference. An increasing share of our population now lives in urban India. Urbanisation is a relentless process, which has come to stay and has to be factored into all our developmental thinking and development processes. We have already added 65 million persons to our urban population in the decade of the 90's alone. We are poised to have nearly fifty per cent of India living in our cities by the earlier part of the present century and that should give you an idea of the magnitude of the development and renewal task that awaits all of us.
