The Aakhya Weekly #163 | Rethinking Urban Planning for Climate-Resilient Indian Cities
In Focus: India’s Urban Future at a Crossroads
By the middle of this century, nearly a billion people will call India’s cities home. Imagine Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru swelling to sizes greater than entire countries — their skylines pushing higher, suburbs stretching further, and streets teeming with both opportunity and uncertainty. India is urbanising at a pace and scale the world has rarely seen, and with every new housing colony, metro line, and industrial hub, the shape of the future is being written in concrete and steel. This surge holds immense promise — cities as engines of innovation, jobs, and mobility, but it also carries profound risks.
The risks come not just from congestion or overstretched services, but from climate itself. Floods, heatwaves, cyclones, and water scarcity are no longer distant threats; they are lived realities that already claim lives and livelihoods each year. Whether Indian cities emerge as resilient hubs of prosperity or fragile centres of crisis will depend on the planning choices being made right now — about land use, housing, transport, and infrastructure. The question is not whether India will urbanise, but whether its urbanisation will withstand the century of climate change ahead.
The Limits of Reactive Urban Planning
Historically, urban planning in India has struggled to keep pace with actual city growth. Master plans are frequently delayed, zoning rules are overridden, and infrastructure investments are often steered by immediate political gains rather than sustainable, long-term goals. This disjunction is now colliding with intensifying shocks: two-thirds of urban Indians already face significant flood risk, and projections position annual flood-related losses at $30 billion by 2070 (World Bank, 2025). The urban heat island effect has further raised city temperatures by 3–4°C compared to rural areas, impacting health and labour productivity (Current World Environment Journal).
Transportation networks are especially vulnerable. Mumbai, for example, has seen that when just 20% of roads are flooded, over half of its public transport network grinds to a halt, multiplying both direct and indirect economic losses.
Housing the Future - Beyond Vulnerability
By 2070, more than 144 million new homes must be constructed, and the placement of this housing—especially in flood-prone, coastal, or unstable areas—will define future vulnerabilities. Land-use governance must transform from a procedural hurdle to a central pillar of resilience, enforcing no-build and buffer zones rigorously.
Urban form matters: Mumbai’s low-density sprawl increases car dependency, worsens heat stress, and strains municipal resources. Contrastingly, Delhi's compact, transit-oriented development offers a scalable model for efficient (and climate-smart) infrastructure that reduces the city’s carbon footprint.
Infrastructure That Shields, Not Just Shows
India’s urban infrastructure tends to emphasise visible, headline-grabbing projects—flyovers, malls, expressways—over climate-protective investments like stormwater drains, wetlands restoration, and decentralised energy. Optimal investment should focus on green and blue infrastructure, including flood management and heat mitigation systems.
Some cities are making headway: Ahmedabad has developed a Heat Action Plan that includes early warnings, healthcare preparation, increased green spaces, and adaptation for outdoor workers. Chennai is advancing with a climate action plan focused on risk assessment and both adaptation and low-carbon growth. Indore excels in waste management, while Surat showcases a real-time flood forecasting and early warning system that leverages smart sensors and geospatial data for preparedness.
Expanding the Resilience Toolbox: Lessons from the Smart Cities Mission
The Smart Cities Mission provides a laboratory for resilience strategies at the city level. Pune’s multi-pronged approach integrates decentralised waste collection—reducing landfill methane, improving recycling, and promoting social inclusion through worker-owned models. Rainwater harvesting, expansion of green spaces, metro and bicycle networks contribute to reducing both emissions and urban heat.
Surat’s innovation centres on robust flood forecasting, smart water metering, and wastewater recycling for industrial use—relieving pressure on freshwater while improving urban air quality through linear parks and urban forests.
Learnings from international leaders like Singapore and Copenhagen highlight nature-based solutions, systemic green and blue infrastructure, and holistic policy alignment. The Indian context, however, is marked by fragmented governance and inconsistent financing, underscoring the need to embed climate resilience indicators within city planning frameworks.
The Governance and Finance Gap
Empowered municipal leadership is indispensable for resilience, yet most Indian cities operate with outdated staff and revenue models, accounting for less than 1% of city GDP in local income (NITI Aayog). Tax reforms and the expansion of local financing instruments such as municipal bonds (with Pune leading in green bonds) are needed to finance the estimated $2.4 trillion required for resilient infrastructure by 2050.
Structural dependence on state governments often results in climate projects being relegated to a lower priority. National and state fiscal transfers should be directly aligned with resilience performance indicators to break the cycle of short-term, reactive planning.
The Political Economy of Risk
Resilience is deeply political. Quick, lucrative returns for developers often win out over long-term city planning, resulting in developments in high-risk zones. Policy reforms must incentivise cities that incorporate risk assessments, enforce zoning, and resist speculative development.
India has a rare window to learn from international best practices and avoid repeating the pitfalls seen in other urbanising economies. This demands a planning-first philosophy: embedding climate analysis in every master plan revision, aligning land-use and infrastructure regulation, and investing in protective systems across housing, transport, water, and disaster risk management. Dedicated resilience authorities at the city and state levels can help integrate efforts, reducing silos and restricting effective action.
Citizen engagement also matters: community-driven climate adaptation—through awareness campaigns, local stewardship of green spaces, and participatory budgeting—creates legitimacy and social capital for resilience-building.
The Stakes: Building Cities That Survive and Thrive
Climate resilience is not just a “green” or isolated agenda—it is foundational to India’s economic vitality, social cohesion, and political stability. Choices made on the urban scale, including density and infrastructure, over the next 20 years will define whether cities can absorb climate shocks or succumb to them.
With over half of future urban infrastructure still to be built, the potential to set a new global benchmark for resilience is within reach. The future of Indian cities will be planned into existence. The real task: will India choose a path of vulnerability or of preparedness and prosperity for all?
Top Stories of the Week
DoT Issues Draft Rules For Telecom Authorisation Framework
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has unveiled draft rules for the authorisation regime for telecom services under the Telecommunications Act, 2023. The proposed Telecommunications (Authorisation for Provision of Main Telecommunication Services) Rules, 2025, released on September 5, aim to simplify operators’ entry into the market by reducing licensing burdens.
Key changes include that companies will no longer need a traditional licence to provide telecom services under this new regime; instead, approval is granted via authorisation, with service-specific conditions notified separately. Existing licensees may migrate to the new authorisation framework, and authorisations under the new rules will have a 20-year validity period, subject to revocation or curtailment under specified conditions.
Security and compliance provisions include mandatory lawful interception and monitoring, integration with the Centralised Monitoring System (CMS) or Internet Monitoring System (IMS), and strict rules for routing traffic within India, especially for satellite-based services. The rules are open for public consultation for a period of thirty days. Stakeholders are invited to submit comments before the DoT finalises the framework.
India Approves a ₹1,500 Crore Incentive Scheme to Boost Critical Mineral Recycling
The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved a ₹1,500 crore Incentive Scheme to strengthen India’s recycling capacity for critical minerals, under the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM). The scheme aims to ensure near-term supply chain resilience by extracting key minerals from secondary sources such as e-waste, lithium-ion battery (LIB) scrap, catalytic converters, and other industrial residues.
The scheme supports both established and emerging recyclers, with one-third of the outlay earmarked for start-ups and smaller players. The eligible investments include new facilities, capacity expansion, modernisation, and diversification. Incentives will be provided as a 20% capital expenditure subsidy for plant and equipment, alongside operating subsidies linked to incremental sales, subject to an overall ceiling of ₹50 crore per large entity and ₹25 crore for smaller ones. The initiative is expected to develop 270 kilo tons of annual recycling capacity, generating around 40 kilo tons of critical minerals. It is projected to attract ₹8,000 crore in investment and create nearly 70,000 jobs. The scheme was finalised following extensive consultations with industry stakeholders, signalling India’s push for sustainable resource security.
A Few Good Reads
Michael Kugelman argues that India’s strategic autonomy is more important than rushing into reconciliatory gestures with the U.S.; it should engage only when it can do so on its own terms, balancing pressures from all sides.
Eliot Bendinelli argues that Europe’s push for digital sovereignty can’t just be about building or using European tech; it must include interoperability, user choice, data portability, and rights-centred guardrails to avoid repeating the mistakes of Big Tech.
Mihir Sharma writes that India’s semiconductor push should be understood less in terms of chasing hyper-profitable global tech leadership and more as a strategic move to shore up supply-chain security and reduce dependency.
Jeffrey Ding explores China’s emerging AI strategy, arguing that its phased plans reflect both ambition and risk: that its path may accelerate competitive pressures globally while exposing governance and ethical gaps.
Amarbahadur Yadav highlights that despite high headline FDI inflows, large outward flows and disinvestment undermine the value of the investment actually retained, urging policy clarity and infrastructure upgrades to translate inflows into real industrial growth.