World Bank study warns 70% of India's 2050 urban infrastructure is yet to be built. ¹
India's urbanisation is becoming metabolically unsustainable.
India's emerging circular economy is projected to create $2 trillion in value and 10 million jobs by 2050. ¹

Cities function like living organisms, consuming energy, water and minerals, while emitting heat, waste and pollutants.
Urban metabolism has breached the ecological limits, creating a metabolic rift, or disconnect between relentless construction and nature's capacity to regenerate.

In Bengaluru, over 1,000 storm water drains were encroached in 2024 alone, while Kolkata has lost over 44% of its water bodies in the last 2 decades.

Urban Heat Island effect, intensifies by glass, asphalt and shrinking green cover, trap dangerous levels of heat, by flawed heat amplifying design.
In May 2024, temperatures in New Delhi hit 47.3 degree celsius. The city's climate severity index has risen by 1.5% over 15 years to 57.
In Chennai, extreme heat is already estimated to drain $1.9 billion annually, 2.3% of the city's GDP. This could rise to 3.2% by 2050.
Low income zones, often built with heat retaining materials, lacking shade, consistently register higher temperatures, worsening heath risks and eroding productivity.

Sealed landscapes can't absorb rainfall. Pluvial floods are expected to intensify from 3.6 to 7 times by 2070.
In 2020, nearly half of the India's urban population was living in informal urban settlements, in flood prone areas.
India has lost over 1,500 lives annually to flood over the past decades. Adding the heat related deaths, estimated at 0.2 to 0.4 per 1,000 people annually in cities like Chennai, Surat and Lucknow, with 20% higher mortality among seniors.

Urban waste is projected to reach 435 million tonnes by 2050.

Climate effects magnify disparities, placing the heaviest burden on the vulnerable.

We need more than infrastructure, adaptive governance, and build up of local capacity.
Only 10 out of 126 cities under the Climate smart cities assessment framework have conducted flood risk assessments. ¹

Ahmedabad, the Mahila Housing trust has enabled informal settlers to access microfinance and install cool roofs, a low cost and effective heat mitigation strategy. The city's heat action plan has helped prevent over 1,100 deaths annually since 2013.

Establishing a Right to a resilient city demands a significant financial step up. India needs nearly $2.4 trillion by 2050 for a resilient urban infrastructure. Current spending is at $120.5 billion. ¹

References

Urban Climate Crisis