NEW DELHI: Niti Aayog chief executive officer BVR Subrahmanyam on Tuesday announced plans to set up a growth hub programme for 20 Indian cities to tap the potential economic growth in urban centres.

“You’re the first people hearing it outside my limited walls and maybe in PMO. In the growth hub programme, we’re planning to pick up 20 cities... Say Mumbai has a 250-billion dollar GDP. Can we plan for making Mumbai a one trillion-dollar city? Can we make Lucknow a half a trillion-dollar city? Can we make Bangalore a trillion-dollar city? Pick up 20 cities in the country, do a SWOT analysis... identify the drivers of the growth in that city and then scale it up,” Subrahmanyam said at the WRI India’s Connect Karo-2023 conference on Tuesday. Hindustan Times is the media partner for the event.

“If India is going to become a $ 30 trillion economy, probably $25 trillion of that is going to come from urban areas. Now, that’s something we need to realise. Are we planning for that in that direction? Do we see urban areas as engines of growth?” he said in a session moderated by Madhav Pai, CEO of World Resources Institute (WRI) India. WRI shared a press statement on the conversation on Wednesday.