Dream City Delhi

How a sarkari city overtook Mumbai as a business centre

- Ankita Sharma

Anand Kumar, from Palwal, a small town in Haryana, had gone to bustling Bombay in the late 1980s as a teenager in search of work. “I had thought I’d drive a taxi or something, it would help me set up a base, and I would be able to make a comfortable living in a few years,” says Anand Kumar, now 42. Those dreams were short-lived. Housing was unaffordable, and life was a grind he could not take. In no more than a couple of years, he went to Delhi – some 125 km  from his hometown – and set up a tailoring shop in Lajpat Nagar. He has a house in the Badarpur area, where he lives with his wife and three children. “I went to Delhi. It was much more affordable. And there’s no looking back.”

Anand Kumar’s story is typical of a change that oxford economics, a leading macro economic research group, took note of: Delhi edged out Mumbai in the group’s ranking of the top 50 metros. In 2015, Mumbai (including Navi Mumbai, Thane, Vasai-Virar, Bhiwandi and Panvel) had a GDP of $368 billion; and Delhi NCR (including Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad) was ahead by $2 billion with a GDP of $370 billion. ranking-wise Mumbai was 31st, and Delhi 30th. Moreover, oxford economics forecasts that in 2030, Delhi’s GDP will be $1,040 billion and that of Mumbai $930 billion.

Currently, it’s a small difference: $2 billion. As is to be expected, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and other politicians refuse to make much of it. But the projection for 2030 is a confirmation of what has long been perceived: the buzz is no longer in Mumbai, but in Delhi.