The growth of cities as IT hubs has opened up new avenues of employment but has also created new problems. Substantiate this statement with examples.

According to the Economic Survey of India 2019-20, The IT-BPO sector of India contributed nearly 162 billion USD (2018-19) to the economy of India. The IT hubs located in the cities like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Noida, Gurgaon, and Pune emerged India as an epicenter of IT industries and eventually opened up new avenues of employment.

Benefits:

• Shifting duties of industries to meet the overseas clients increased the number of recruitment.
• Several other small industries got benefited from the IT industries i.e. facility management, third party security provider, Maintenance, accommodation, construction industries, etc.
• Skill providing institutions, automobile industry, and e-commerce industry received a boost indirectly.

Challenges & instances:

• The effect of rapid urbanization caused a resource crisis, poor governance, and imbalances. Like some of the IT cities of India like Bengaluru and Surat are facing severe water shortage. Municipal corporations are facing a resource deficit and a shortage of staff.
• The price of real estate is hiked and the cities are facing the laden of additional migrants. For example, the assistance of working professionals like a driver, cook, the maid is causing population outburst.
• The use of personal vehicles and modern electronic luxury equipment like AC, refrigerator, cooler are causing air pollution.
• More industrial activity causing more water pollution. Like the water quality of Noida degraded.
• Rapid urbanization is creating a threat to biodiversity. Deforestation, communication tower radiation is severely causing harm to birds and other creatures.

Setting up an eco-friendly and well-planned model, considering all problems, India could achieve the objective of Sustainable Development Goal which aims at the cessation of poverty, reduction of unemployment, and the making of a well-balanced environment.