Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, has low urban growth but a high rise in census towns, according to the 2011 census. The increase was tripled from 2001. There are more smaller census towns in the eastern half of the state than in its more commercialized, industrialized, and urbanized western equivalent. These towns account for 8% of the state's total urban area, while being managed as rural villages. The Ministry of Urban Development should give the states priority in converting these census towns into statutory towns with urban local bodies. In order to provide basic services to a significant section of the population, the state government seems dedicated to expanding its urban network. In the last ten years, over 80 new municipalities have been created, but only a few hundred census towns have been converted to statute towns. The existing statutory towns should merge with census towns that are next to them. Converting heavily populated census towns in the west into statute towns with municipalities ought to be given priority.