File photo
Jobs, exports, talent and investment increasingly depend on urban India. Three reforms can turn cities from growth constraints into productive assetsIndia’s economic destiny will be decided in its cities. This is a no brainer. They concentrate people, ideas, capital and markets in ways no other mode of human habitation can. India’s transition to a high-income Viksit Bharat will happen on the back of vibrant, well-functioning cities — as has happened everywhere else.For India, the stakes are higher than most. Unlike East Asia, whose rise was powered by manufacturing, India’s competitive edge lies in services. IT, BPO, financial services and over 2,000 global capability centres (GCC) currently employing 2.3 million professionals have driven exports and highvalue jobs for two decades. Services exports now rival merchandise exports. All these industries are urban. They live or die by whether cities can attract skilled talent and investors, provide reliable infrastructure and offer a quality of life that allows firms to compete globally.The liveability of Bengaluru or Gurgaon is not a municipal detail in an era where professionals are mobile. It is a national economic variable that shapes whether India’s brightest build their futures at home or in Singapore, Dubai or London. India has made real progress. Metro rail now operates approximately 1000km in about 20 cities (compared with 229km across less than five cities in 2013). Airports and highways have improved dramatically. Household tap water and sanitation coverage has expanded sharply and are now universal in urban areas with high public awareness. Digital governance has simplified access to civic services.But the gaps that remain are large enough to threaten the entire growth story.
Time lost in rush hour.
Take air. Delhi is consistently ranked among the world’s most polluted capitals, with annual PM2. 5 concentrations 20 times WHO guidelines. Indian cities dominate global lists of the most polluted urban centres. This is not an unsolvable problem. Mexico City, once a byword for pollution, cut pollution through sustained, coordinated policy. India has yet to mount an effort of comparable seriousness.Basic services tell a similar story. Tap connections may have multiplied but almost no Indian city delivers water 24×7, forcing households to invest in tanks, pumps and purifiers — a private tax on public failure. Waste collection now exceeds 90% in many cities, without scientific processing, leaving mountains of legacy waste — Ghazipur in Delhi, Deonar in Mumbai — towering over neighbourhoods.
The future is urban-and close
Or consider the humble footpath. Indian cities are designed for vehicles, not people. In most cities, a majority of roads lack continuous, usable footpaths, even though walking accounts for a third or more of all trips. Cities in Europe and East Asia treat walkability as basic infrastructure; we treat it as an afterthought to be sacrificed whenever a road becomes congested. Behind all this lies a financing failure. India invests roughly 0.6-1.5% of GDP a year in urban infrastructure, against the 3-5% that rapidly urbanising economies have typically invested during their fastest growth phases.
