Abstract
This article primarily tries to examine the effects of urban growth on resource degradation and its environmental impact in million plus cities in India. The study traces out the complex contours of urban growth in terms of area, population and households with a view to understand its consequence on environment in a broader perspective. During the last two decades of 1981–1991 and 1991–2001, the cities of Faridabad in Haryana, Surat in Gujarat, Nashik in Maharashtra, Ludhiyana in Punjab, Pune in Maharashtra, Rajkot in Gujarat and National Capital Territory of Delhi were the high impact cities in terms of over-exploitation of resources and relatively high environmental consequences. The next group of cities in the million plus category that suffered resource degradation and environmental decay during the study period were Jaipur in Rajasthan, Lucknow in UP, Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Meerut in UP, Bangalore in Karnataka, Vadodara in Gujarat, Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, Asansol in West Bengal and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.