<The study jointly conducted by the NCAER and Future Capital Research says the 20 top boom cities and towns in India will have their annual household income grow at 10 per cent over the next eight years. These urban centres already account for 60 per cent of the surplus income (income minus expenditure) at present. So, these cities will be the biggest consumer markets for businesses to target. Besides the obvious candidates such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkatta and Bangalore the surprise entries among the top 20 future boom towns are Nagpur, Surat, Bhopal, Jaipur, Kanpur, Coimbatore and Lucknow. Then there are niche cities like Faridabad, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Chandigarh and Jallandhar where both incomes and consumption are expected to substantially outpace the national. The emergence of Bhopal and Kanpur on the list is more surprising as they are in states which lag the national average on various indices. So is it the case that cities may evolve their own economic and social ethos irrespective of which states they are in?>
Note that Goa (as a city state) is missed out completely. It may actually belong with the top seven or eight in the country. Others may have trouble changing their mindsets in this fish vs fowl situation but GOG should not have any excuse. Goa will gets its rightful dues from the national pie only if GOG provides the lead in thinking about and planning for it -- as a city state on the move rather than as an aggregation of quaint villages mired in the distant past.
