Urbanisation: problems and remedies

The first principle

A city works when land, water, transport and services keep pace with the people who arrive, and it fails when they do not. In India, people and jobs have come to cities faster than the state has supplied housing, pipes and buses, and the gap is filled informally, through slums, private tankers, autorickshaws and street vending. Most urban problems are therefore problems of a planning and finance deficit, and most remedies are about giving cities the money, powers and land to close it while keeping the poor inside the city instead of pushing them out.

The core

Housing and slums

• Census 2011 found about 65.5 million people, or 17.4 per cent of the urban population, living in slums across 2,613 towns, and 13.9 million slum households. Maharashtra had the largest slum population, while Greater Mumbai had about 41 per cent of its people in slums.
• The Census counts three kinds of slums: notified, recognised and identified, which means many unrecognised settlements are left out of both data and services.
• Slums arise because formal housing is unaffordable to low wage workers and land is locked in rigid rules, yet those workers must live near work. The Technical Group on Urban Housing Shortage (2012) estimated a shortage of 18.78 million units, about 96 per cent of it among economically weaker sections (EWS) and low income groups.

Water, sanitation, waste, floods, pollution and heat

• Piped water is intermittent in most cities, so households depend on tankers and groundwater, and the poor pay more per litre than the rich.
• Untreated sewage and unsegregated waste fill rivers and landfills, as fires at Delhi's Ghazipur dump have shown.
• Urban floods follow when drains are blocked and lakes and floodplains are built over; their geography is covered in the Geography notes.
• Concrete, traffic and lost tree cover make cities hotter than their surroundings (the urban heat island), and outdoor workers bear the worst of it.

Transport

Car and two wheeler numbers grow faster than roads can, so congestion slows everyone, while buses lose riders because they are few and stuck in the same traffic.

Does urbanisation segregate and marginalise the poor?

Yes, in several ways.

• Land markets sort people by income, so the poor are pushed to slums, unauthorised colonies and resettlement colonies on the periphery, such as Bawana and Savda Ghevra in Delhi, far from jobs.
• Evictions in the name of beautification, flood control or events, such as the 2010 Commonwealth Games, displace families without adequate rehabilitation.
• Gated communities and private townships create elite enclaves with their own services, and the rich then lose interest in public schools, buses and parks.
• Caste and religion still shape where people can rent, and studies of Indian cities show residential segregation by caste comparable to that by religion.
• Informal workers live without social security, and the urban poor are often invisible in data and plans.

No, or not only.

• Cities offer the poor higher wages, non farm work and an escape from village caste control, which is why they keep coming.
• Slum dwellers organise, vote in large numbers and win services, and many slums gradually consolidate into permanent neighbourhoods.
• Courts and laws, from Olga Tellis (1985) to the Street Vendors Act, 2014, have built protections for the urban poor.

The balanced view is that urbanisation does not cause segregation by itself, but unequal access to land, housing and services, together with exclusionary planning, turns it into spatial marginalisation.

Dimensions

• Governance. The Constitution (Seventy fourth Amendment) Act, 1992 created a framework for urban local bodies, including the Twelfth Schedule of 18 functions, State Finance Commissions, Ward Committees and Metropolitan Planning Committees. In practice states have devolved few functions, mayors are weak, and parastatal bodies such as development authorities run land and water.
• Finance. Municipal revenue in India is below 1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), against several times that in Brazil and South Africa, and property tax is badly assessed and collected.
• Social. Gender shapes how cities are used, since women walk and take buses more and face harassment in public space.
• Environmental. Urban growth eats wetlands, farmland and green cover.

In practice

Mass transport as the key to growth

Efficient and affordable public transport is central to economic growth because it widens each worker's job market and each firm's labour pool, which is the agglomeration economy that makes cities productive. It also cuts time lost in traffic, fuel imports and air pollution, and it lets women and low income workers reach jobs safely and cheaply. The National Urban Transport Policy (2006) set the principle of moving people rather than vehicles and asked that a larger share of road space go to buses, cycling and walking. Metro rail now runs in over 20 cities with more than 1,000 kilometres operational, and the Delhi Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System extends the idea to whole city regions. Metros alone are not enough, because most trips are short and most commuters use buses; PM e Bus Sewa (2023, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs) aims to deploy 10,000 electric buses in smaller cities. Last mile links, integrated ticketing and transit oriented development, where dense housing and offices are built around stations, make the network pay.

Missions and laws

• Smart Cities Mission (2015, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs): 100 cities, with area based development of a chosen zone plus pan city digital solutions, through special purpose vehicles (SPVs). The mission was extended to March 2025.
• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) (2015): water supply, sewerage and parks in 500 cities; AMRUT 2.0 (2021) aims at universal tap water in all statutory towns and sewerage in the 500 cities.
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Urban (PMAY U) (2015): housing for the urban poor through slum redevelopment, credit subsidy, affordable housing partnerships and beneficiary led construction; PMAY U 2.0 (2024) targets 1 crore more urban houses and adds affordable rental housing.
• Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Urban (2014; 2.0 in 2021): toilets, open defecation free status and garbage free cities.
• Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY NULM) (2013, renamed 2016): skills, self help groups, shelters for the urban homeless and support to street vendors.
• Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014: town vending committees, vending zones and certificates, so vendors cannot be evicted at will.
• PM SVANidhi (2020): collateral free working capital loans in rising tranches (first ₹10,000, then ₹20,000 and ₹50,000) to street vendors, with digital payment incentives; the scheme was extended and its loan amounts raised in 2025.
• Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (2020): rental homes for migrants, created after the lockdown exodus.

Judgement

• Olga Tellis v Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985): the right to livelihood is part of the right to life under Article 21, so pavement dwellers could be evicted only after a fair hearing, and the Court asked for resettlement.

Does the Smart Cities Mission address urban poverty and distributive justice?

It does in part. Some projects improved public spaces, schools, bus systems and sanitation that the poor also use, and integrated command and control centres improved basic services. PMAY and AMRUT money was often channelled through the same plans. The critique is stronger, though. Area based development spent most funds in a small part of each city, often a central or well off zone, while slums and the periphery got less; special purpose vehicles bypassed elected councils; and citizen consultation was mostly online, which excludes the poor. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development noted slow fund use. Distributive justice needs the mission's tools to be joined to housing, vending, sanitation and transport for the poor, which is what PMAY U 2.0, SVANidhi and PM e Bus Sewa try to do.

Issues and way forward

• Weak municipal finance. Cities depend on transfers because states keep the buoyant taxes. The Fifteenth Finance Commission (2020) tied grants to cities to property tax floor rates and audited accounts and recommended separate grants for million plus cities; the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2007) recommended stronger State Finance Commissions and real devolution of functions.
• Fragmented governance. Parastatals run key services; the Second Administrative Reforms Commission wanted a directly elected or empowered mayor and functional Metropolitan Planning Committees.
• Shortage of planners and outdated master plans. NITI Aayog's 2021 report on urban planning capacity asked for more planners and the use of land value capture.
• Exclusion of the poor. In situ slum upgrading, rental housing, vending zones and protection from forced eviction keep the poor in the city.
• Climate risk. Heat action plans, like Ahmedabad's since 2013, and protection of lakes and drains reduce harm.

Common confusions

• Notified and identified slums. A notified slum is declared by law and gets services; an identified slum is only counted by the Census.
• Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT. The first develops chosen zones of 100 cities; the second builds basic water and sewerage networks across 500 cities.
• Metropolitan Planning Committee and Metropolitan Development Authority. The first is a constitutional planning body under Article 243ZE; the second is a state agency that usually holds the real power.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: slum, informal settlement, eviction, gated community, right to the city, 74th Amendment, devolution, property tax, mass rapid transit, transit oriented development, area based development, in situ upgrading, rental housing, street vending.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction (data): Census 2011 counted 65.5 million slum dwellers, about one in six urban Indians, which shows how far housing lags behind urban growth.
  • Introduction (judgement): In Olga Tellis (1985) the Supreme Court held that the right to livelihood is part of the right to life, which places the urban poor at the centre of city planning.
  • Conclusion: Indian cities will deliver growth and justice together only when they gain the money, powers and planners promised by the 74th Amendment.
  • Conclusion: Inclusive cities need mass transit, rental housing and vending zones built into every mission, so that the workers who build the city can also live in it.