Problems of Indian cities can be classified in the following ways: 

1. Urban Poverty: Urban poverty is the by-product of industrialization and urbanization. Poverty and overcrowding are the two most visible features of Indian cities. About half of the urbanites are poor and live in substandard life, because of cost of living, lack of regular income, low wages, pro-rich economic policies, inflation, etc.

India has issued its first-ever report on the nature and dynamics of urban poverty in the country undertaken with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India Urban Poverty Report 2009 which identifies the problems faced by the poor and focuses on the systematic changes that are needed to address them.

The report examines various issues related to urban poverty, such as migration, labor, the role of gender, access to basic services and the appalling condition of India’s slums. It also looks at the dynamics of urban land and capital market, urban governance, and the marginalization of the poor to the urban periphery.

2. Slums: The magnitude of the problem of slums is alarming. The Government of India, in order to implement the various schemes for urban development, has defined a slum area as follows:

A slum area means any area where such dwellings predominate of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement of buildings, narrowness and faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, lack of sanitation facilities, inadequacy of open spaces and community facilities or any combination of these factors, are detrimental to safety, health or morale,” These slum areas are also referred to as the ‘Blighted area’; ‘Renewal area’; ‘deteriorated area’, ‘Gray area’; ‘Lower class neighborhood’; ‘Lower income area’, etc.

3. Problem of Urban Housing: The bulk of the people in the Indian cities live in one-room or in thatched huts in the sprawling slums or on the pavements. Another sad feature is total lack of essential municipal services like water supply, drainage, sewarage, lighting, -roads, etc.

Further, large proportion of the rural migrants have been bringing with them unskilled persons who take up unskilled jobs in the services, trade, industries, etc. Generally a single room has to meet all the requirements of the family including cooking, living, sleeping which make confinement.

It is difficult to keep reasonably clean and sanitary washing and bathing facilities. The inconvenience they have to undergo is aggravated during the rainy days. Almost all the above mentioned conditions are found in shawls of Mumbai, that as of Kanpur, bastis of Kolkata, cheris of Chennai as well as in Dhowrahas of the mining centres and barracks of the plantations in India.

These are made of brick walls and iron roof or huts consisting of bamboo walls and thatched roofs. The lanes are too narrow and the huts are built back to back. These lack facilities like bathing, washing and toilets, etc.

4. Sanitation and Pollution: It is accompanied with corrupt Municipal administration and inefficiency. According to UNICEF, lakhs of urban children in India die or suffer from diarrhea, diphtheria, tetanus and measles etc.

5. Transportation and Traffic: Transportation and traffic picture in Indian cities is troublesome. Majority of people use buses and other vehicles, while a few use rails as transport system. The increasing number of two wheelers and other types of vehicles make the traffic problem worse.