East India - Urban Areas

Urban Areas

West Bengal's capital Kolkata, the capital of British India until 1911, is the biggest metropolis and economically dominant city of the region and third largest in India and one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Kolkata is very fast transforming itself to become city equipped with every facilities for IT and ITES and also financial outsourcing hub and its satellites Saltlake City and Rajarhat are taken the burdens of India's IT and financial boom. It is also known as city of joy, cultural capital of India, intellectual capital fo India etc. However, the mid-sized cities of Bhubaneshwar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Puri in Orissa and Durgapur, Siliguri, Asansol in West Bengal are emerging urban areas. Bihar has Patna, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur and Gaya are important urban areas. In Jharkhand the major urban areas are mainly dominated by industrial cities such as Ranchi, Bokaro Steel City, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad.

Bhubaneswar is the capital of the Indian state of Orissa. The city has a long history of over 2000 years starting with Chedi dynasty (around 2nd century BCE) who had Sisupalgarh near present-day Bhubaneswar as their capital. Historically Bhubaneswar has been known by different names such as Toshali, Kalinga Nagari, Nagar Kalinga, Ekamra Kanan, Ekamra Kshetra and Mandira Malini Nagari (city of temples) otherwise known as the temple city of India. The largest city of Orissa, Bhubaneswar today is a center of economic and religious importance in the region. With the economic liberalisation policy adopted by the Government of India in the 90s, Bhubaneswar received large investments in the fields of telecommunications, IT and higher education, particularly engineering. The city is home to around 60 engineering colleges (as of 2009) and the number is growing every year. The city is also home to many tutorials and coaching institutes who prepare students for various entrance exams.

Retail and Real Estate have also emerged as big players. Recent times have seen large scale retail chains such as Reliance, Vishal MegaMart, Big Bazaar, Pantaloon, Pal Heights, Indulge, New Leaf, Habib's, had opened outlets in Bhubaneswar. Large corporations like DLF Universal and Reliance Industries have entered the real estate market in the city. DLF Limited is developing an Infopark spread over an area of 54 acres (220,000 m2) in the city. Expanding its business portfolio, the Kolkata-based Saraf Group, promoters of Forum Mart shopping malls is constructing another Shopping mall named Forum Lifestyle mall a 550,000 sq ft (51,000 m2) lifestyle mall in Bhubaneswar with 1,200 car parks. The rich minerals resources of Orissa have been the backbone of the economy dominated by Government.Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and private organizations like Jindal, Vedanta and TATAS. Despite this rapid growth, an ample number of the populace live in slums. Migration from rural areas, especially from the northern districts of Andhra Pradesh, has led to the growth of slums which are a major challenge to the city's growth. The slum dwellers work as auto rickshaw drivers or small vendors but this is not true for everyone. A lot of them are unemployed and are being drawn into crime. The main problem of the city is transport as the quality and length of roads have not increased with respect to the rise in number of vehicles. Purchasing power of people of this city is quite high but this city does not get enough highlightment and often neglected by big channels like Discovery, NatGeo, etc.

The Government has fostered growth in this sphere by the development of IT Parks such as Infocity 1 and the new Infocity 2. The Info City was conceived as a five star park, under the Export Promotion Industrial Parks (EPIP) Scheme to create high quality infrastructure facilities for setting up Information Technology related industries. Infosys and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. have been present in Bhubaneswar since 1996-97. Its current head count stands at around 5000. The first part of the TCS centre is ready and has a capacity to accommodate nearly 1,200 professionals but the software major has only 250 employees at present. The Finland telecommunication company, Nethawk, has its India R&D center at Bhubaneswar. The Canadian giant, Gennum Corporation has its India development centre at Bhubaneswar. The famous auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd. also have a center in Bhubaneswar. The private STP is located at Infocity in Chandaka, Bhubaneswar with a view to provide incubation and infrastructure facilities to new and young entrepreneurs in the MSME sector, The intelligent building of the JSS STP is spread in a sprawling 3-acre (12,000 m2) campus and houses state-of-art technology to fulfil the growing demands of highly competent IT professionals.

The Eastern India particularly Jharkhand is rich in mineral resources which resulted in Economic boom in Damodar Valley region and regions near Kolkata which resulted in development of cities such as Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Dhanbad, Ranchi, and Patna.