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India has indeed achieved remarkable progress in alleviating extreme poverty but not all cities are equally benefiting with this development, as 171 million individuals have come out of it in the last ten years according to World Bank. Other cities are still way behind due to their poor infrastructure, poor services and deep-rooted deprivation. In 2025, urban spaces of poor depiction exhibit internal polarity in those locations, wherein the bulk of individuals remain entrenched in dire economic conditions, frequenting informal residential areas, without ensured water availability, cleanliness, healthcare, or steady employment. Also read, Poorest Counties in Pennsylvania – 2025, Top 10 Richest and Poorest Countries in the World 2025
Data on a few of those more affected cities with their most serious challenges and obstacles to their action is given below:
Key Data on Poorest Cities — Selected Cases
| City / Region | Estimated Poverty Rate / Deprivation | Major Challenges | Notes & Context |
| Pilibhit (UP) | ~ 45.23 % under poverty line (per older estimates) | Lack of infrastructure, poor sanitation, flood-prone terrain | Pilibhit has regularly ranked among India’s most deprived municipalities; many households lack stable income or assets |
| Meerut (Uttar Pradesh / NCR region) | High multidimensional poverty (MPI measure among cities) | Educational deficits, health access, slum gaps | In analyses of urban poverty, Meerut often shows the highest share of deprived households across key indicators |
| Other metro / large cities (e.g. Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata) | Moderate overall poverty but severe internal pockets | Spatial inequality, slums, service deficits | In large cities, poverty is uneven — the rich and poor often live side by side but with huge gaps in living conditions |
Table Description & Interpretation
The table above identifies three representative forms of poorest cities in India in 2025, small cities with high poverty rates (Pilibhit), mid the city with high multidimensional deprivation rates (Meerut) and big metros with deep disparities concealing population wealth. The goals, based on the most recent professional or analytical numbers, are in the column of Estimated Poverty Rate / Deprivation; the column of Major Challenges denotes the structural inefficiencies positioned within the realm of these cities, and the column of Notes and Context contextualizes the figures with the conditions of the real world.
The extreme level of poverty in Piracute is a pointer that small cities are unlikely to attract resources to develop at a greater pace. The profile of Meerut makes us remember that income is not the only thing but access to health, education, housing and utilities as well is very important. Even in the fortune metros, huge slum areas remain with living conditions enhanced like those in the past as poor towns.
Why These Cities Struggle — Underlying Barriers
Poor Urban Infrastructure and Services
Most of the impoverished cities of India have poor civic planning. Marginalized neighborhoods suffered with water supply, drainage, sanitation, streetlight, solid waste collection, and health care systems which are quite unreliable or totally lacking. Planning blocs in cities have left out the informal areas to focus on areas that can be economically viable.
Spatial Inequality, Informality Economy and Governal Gaps
Cities are not poor simply because of income. It is ignorance to live in slums or informal settlement, property rights, not an official employee, and terrible political voice. Thousands of citizens make a living with precarious work and cannot withstand any shocks and face repeated poverty due to the impossibility of investing in higher quality housing and education. The partitioning is also enhanced by bureaucratic laxity and weak municipal administration.
Unstable strides of national profits
There has always been a discrepancy between macro success of poverty reduction of India and rural areas and equitable upliftment of urban prospective growth. States that saw the original extent of extreme poverty decline in general terms have a large number of city residents on the verge, a crisis downward next to them. And in the worst-merited cities the considerably wider expansion patterns may not squander upon them.
