Standing in serpentine queues to collect water from tankers, using disposable plates and wet wipes, resorting to toilet paper, using washrooms in nearby malls or taking fewer showers—Bengaluru is finding itself in the grip of its severest water crisis yet. If that is not enough, residents of the ‘Silicon Valley of India’—otherwise known for its pleasant weather throughout the year—are already grappling with higher-than-usual temperatures and a cholera scare apparently triggered by contaminated water.
“The crisis has been building over the years but is now manifesting in its severity due to several factors, both systemic and otherwise,” says Bharat Sharma, scientist emeritus (water resources), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), New Delhi.
Bengaluru is not an isolated case. Crises in urban areas across the country, involving water, power, healthcare and more, are more or less a reality of life.
From around 350 million at the moment, the urban population of India is projected to reach nearly 900 million by 2050, as per some estimates, which is more than the total population of the whole of present-day Europe. Already, the infrastructures of all the cities—considered the economic nerve centres of the country— are under severe stress. Water shortage is becoming more acute and commonplace, unscheduled power cuts and outages have become a norm, housing and living standards are collapsing and healthcare facilities remain a struggle.
A hard reality
When cities wobble dealing with rudimentary needs, and people have no option but to face the problems on a daily basis, it forces one to ask a pertinent question: Is this the new, accepted reality that we have to live in?
Rohit Negi, associate professor at Ambedkar University, New Delhi, says this is certainly true on more than one account. “Apart from the infrastructural gaps, there is the widespread and deleterious environmental damage that the present urban process is causing. In particular, the air most urban residents breathe is highly toxic, traffic is horrible, access to green spaces is uneven and declining, and disasters lurk,” he notes.
Visuals of people crowding water tankers with containers and standing in long queues and sleeping on roads, or commuters stuck in massive traffic snarls every day are no longer shocking.
“We find the cost of living is increasing exponentially. A major contributor are medical bills. Adverse health, in turn, is a manifestation of falling living standards due to lack of clean air and water. Aspirations for higher incomes and better standard of living are offset by such failing conditions,” says Manu Gupta, co-founder of SEEDS, a not-for-profit organisation working on disaster life-cycle management and sustainable environment.
Experts point to a plethora of factors behind a looming urban crisis, from governance issues, poor urban planning, growing population and migration, concentration of opportunities and facilities in urban areas, inequitable development, to unsustainable practices of development like rapid urbanisation and concretisation.
Coming back to the Bengaluru crisis, Sharma of IWMI says that with massive concretisation and a vertical and spatial expansion, all the spaces in the city have been strangled, breaching the hydrological sustainability. “This is despite the fact that there are some inherent limitations for the southern cities as these are located over the poor water bearing hard rock regions with very low and short capacities for extraction,” he adds.
The lack of adequate resources and investments in infrastructural requirements of the cities is something that cities are grappling with despite statutory provisions and constitutional amendments. This is owing to lax governance resulting in a toothless tiger-like situation of urban local bodies, according to both urban experts and academicians.
“Urban areas generate economic goods and services, but the investments in services do not quite match the pace. Much of the urban economic value is siphoned off by large developers and businesses that, at best, only take care of their small enclaves housing or production. All across the country, urban local bodies are poorly funded and staffed. And things have not gotten that much better three decades after the 74th Amendment,” notes Negi of Ambedkar University.
Gupta of SEEDS also signals towards policy issues and myopic decision making towards resolving urban problems. “Proper growth and management of urban areas in our country have been largely ignored in the economic policies of the government. Inadequate or delayed investment has led to short-term band-aid solutions. Also, unlike rural areas, cities have not witnessed active participation of civil societies and citizens. In spite of the 74th amendment, city governments remain disempowered,” he adds.
Commenting on such government initiatives, Poonam Sewak, vice-president of programmes and partnerships at Safe Water Network India, says, “While the Indian government has implemented numerous initiatives aimed at urban development, including the Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT, AMRUT 2.0, SBM-U, and PMAY, there remain areas for improvement.” The government came up with various initiatives for urban development but they are still work in progress. For instance, the government said that the completion of Smart City Mission projects are being delayed because of difficulties in resettlement of local population and legal issues such as land procurement, frequent transfers of smart cities’ CEOs and delay in projects that require convergence with other government ministries or agencies among others.
Sewak stressed on the need to enhance coordination and collaboration among stakeholders, aligning political priorities, strengthening institutional capacity and governance, ensuring adequate resource allocation at all levels, promoting greater engagement of local communities, and prioritising sustainability in urban planning and development efforts.
Negi of Ambedkar University and Gupta of SEEDS also talk about real estate and illegal construction in eco-sensitive regions as possible causes for the water crisis. “Apart from governments and citizens, since the 1990s, cities have been overtaken by real estate. Land values have shot up, as developers rush to acquire, sub-divide, and sell plots where agricultural lands or ecosystems existed. As they do so, hydrological systems are disrupted, and natural mitigation mechanisms for things like toxic air and heat lose effectiveness. Therefore, not only does the present urbanisation produce environmental stress, it also actively undermines means of dealing with these issues,” Negi observes.
While Sewak is of the view that such issues are exacerbated by the neglect of climate change considerations in water management strategies, further compounding the challenges, Negi cautions against attributing urban crises such as water and flooding to climate change. “Very often, climate change comes to stand in for several processes that are social and economic in nature, thus absolving those in power of responsibility. This kind of reductive thinking should be avoided, and climate should be placed in the backdrop of a number of factors from property, planning, elite capture of resources, etc,” Negi says.
Solutions in sustainability
Sustainability is the only way forward, concur experts. Gupta of SEEDS underscores that sustainability has to be the central theme of all investments in urban areas. “In fast growing fragile systems, an approach that skirts issues of natural balance will almost certainly lead to a crisis,” he explains.
As per a 2021 UNICEF India report, 50 million people in 15 cities have no access to safe and affordable drinking water. Negi says we need to remember the chronicity of the troubles rather than be triggered by the particularly bad episodes (such as in Bengaluru). “With Bengaluru right now, we are talking about the crisis reaching those who in normal times have adequate access to water. When living in apartments worth crores does not guarantee basic amenities, it seems to bring a crisis home even for those with the means,” he adds.
“Yes, these are solutions. Fortunately, India is situated in a monsoonal climate with about four months of abundant water supply. The ingenuity lies in conserving and not squandering the surplus,” says Sharma of IWMI. He suggests allocation for domestic supplies in India to be enhanced to a minimum of 12-15% from current abysmally low 6-7 %, infrastructure for water supplies to be strengthened and modernised with the use of IoT (Internet of Things such as devices and technology), GIS (geographic information systems), regional modelling, and, most importantly, involvement of communities.
Adoption of an integrated approach with the combined use of imported water, rainwater, groundwater and treated wastewater and need for decentralisation of management at the local level with proper monitoring of use and supplies are other suggestions. Sharma says rejuvenation of the sponges of the cities such as lakes, ponds, tanks and water bodies and keeping them clean and healthy while involving and encouraging corporate bodies to adopt these water systems as a part of their CSR can also help.
Cities are burdened because opportunities and facilities are concentrated, hence whenever the resources run inadequate, crisis-like situations arise. On this account, Aneesh Jain, principal, Xynteo, a purpose-driven strategic advisory firm, has a three-pronged approach solution— urban planning needs to account for higher growth of population and requisite needs, and creation of infrastructure needs to be fast tracked and de-bottlenecked; suburban areas need to be developed to provide more options for the citizens to move towards apart from the limited number of metropolitan cities which are already bursting at the seams; and requisite infrastructure needs to be planned in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and towns to create more opportunities and develop them as hubs for different sectoral, industrial and economic activities.
According to a study by Xynteo, Indian consumers are willing to pay premiums ranging from 5-15% for green-certified homes, with Mumbai residents showing exceptional preference.“The survey reveals that urban dwellers are tired of bearing the brunt of the challenges of the urban crisis and are looking for spaces to inhabit which can provide the quality of life that they expect, even if that means they need to bear a premium, because that premium offsets the direct and often indirect costs of health and well-being that they would need to bear otherwise,” says Jain of Xynteo.
As energy transition has become the buzzword, Negi of Ambedkar University says these goals may be achieved by purely technology-based solutions that do not necessarily support liveability. Instead, ecological thinking means bringing the relations between human society and the biophysical environment (including other nonhuman beings) to the foreground, he adds.
According to Negi, valuing ecology above narrow short-term and corporate agendas has to be taken into account. “This is not as is often implied, an ‘anti-growth’ position, but a call to prioritise: clearly outline the future cities’ desire, including economic and environmental outcomes, and work towards them rather than continue status quo. Preserve ecological systems that are critical, and build frugally and responsibly elsewhere,” he adds.
On account of healthcare issues, Oommen Kurian, senior fellow and head of health initiative at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), an independent global think tank based in Delhi, says these problems are mostly spillover challenges of the rural healthcare sector, adding that from an international comparative perspective, India still has a long way to go in health.
In comparison to India’s own past performance, Kurian says that the country has come a long way in the past ten years. “For the first time, India’s infant mortality rate fell below the world average in 2018- 2019. Even after the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) approach lost its favour within the UN system, India has continued a focused implementation of the SDH approach. We have seen renewal in nutrition (NFSA/National Nutrition Mission), housing (PMAY), drinking water (Jal Jeevan Mission), indoor air pollution (Ujjwala Yojana), sanitation (Swachh Bharat), road access (Gram Sadak Yojana), and gender (Bet Bachao, Beti Padhao) sectors, with immense positive externalities to health. Along with expansion of healthcare infrastructure, these factors will play a major factor in taking the pressure off the healthcare delivery system, going forward,” he adds.
The quagmire deepens
Not so healthy
A Lancet study notes that around 40% of India’s population will live in urban areas by 2030. Such a high concentration of population in cities poses a significant challenge to the country’s efforts at universal health coverage. Public health experts concur that urban planning healthcare services are weak in most of the states and attribute accessibility of healthcare facilities to not just the overburdened hospitals but also to affordability.
“There is a lot of urbanisation, rural migrants have moved to the urban settings. When the rural population comes to urban settings, there are a lot of changes. It’s not simply about people physically being transferred from rural to urban settings. Their lifestyle and dietary changes also result in an increase of non-communicable diseases. People are obese, diabetic and hypertensive,” says Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, chief physician and executive director of Foundation for People-centric Health Systems, a not-for-profit organisation headquartered in New Delhi.
“When migrants come to the urban setting, it results in two things. One, it increases the load on urban healthcare. Second, if rural poor are migrating, they cannot afford services in urban settings, which are costly, and third, when you are a migrant in such a setting you are scared to avail health services. It’s a very complex phenomenon,” he adds.
The issue also resides on a lack of coordination among governing bodies. Talking about urban primary health care, Dr Lahariya notes that since the delivery of healthcare services is the responsibility of both state governments as well municipal corporations, it is seen that they don’t coordinate well. There is no clarity as to who will provide the healthcare services. This leads to challenges, especially for larger cities.
Kurian of Observer Research Foundation notes that accessibility to healthcare, infrastructural challenges, and affordability are pressing issues worldwide, not confined to emerging economies or poorer countries alone. “Countries with similar economic conditions in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America exhibit these problems, albeit with regional nuances. Even developed nations, such as the US, face their own versions of these challenges. These concerns are global, transcending economic boundaries, with each region grappling with its unique set of obstacles,” he adds.
Power play
When it comes to electricity supply, for which India is heavily reliant on coal (55% of energy needs), unscheduled power cuts and outages have become a norm whenever there is a shortage. The situation worsens whenever there is a peak demand owing to heatwaves and higher temperatures. All major metros like Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru face electricity shortage due to lack of adequate coal supply to thermal plants, redevelopment and infrastructure projects. Use of air conditioners in summers has become more of a necessity than luxury in the oppressive heat, which, the authorities say, lead to more outages and cuts.
A recent study published in ScienceDirect noted that urban households have to deal with two hours of power outages at least once a day in India. In the summer of 2022, the country experienced the worst power crisis in over six years causing widespread power outages. According to the India Residential Energy Consumption Survey, which claims to be the first-ever pan-India survey on the state of energy access, two-fifths of urban households faced outages at least once a day. “The power shortage of 2022 was not because of inadequate power generating capacity or coal production but because of logistics constraints in moving large amounts of coal across the country from the mines to the power plants,” says Ashok Khurana, director general, Association of Power Producers. “Logistics constraints for coal transportation, strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution networks in the states, and delays in payment against ‘change in law’ events (such as change in taxes/duties) are some of the challenges that the power sector faces,” he adds.
Pramod Agarwal, former chairman-cum-MD of Coal India, says more heatwaves are likely this year. “If a demand like 230 gigawatt or 240 watt comes, there will be shortage of electricity both in rural and urban areas as there is no system which can supply that much of power,” he adds.
The government, however, claims that there is no shortage of electricity in the country. According to the International Energy Agency, the electricity demand in India increased to 7% in 2023 and is likely to grow on an average of 6% a year through 2026 on higher economic activity.
Vikram V, a power analyst and vice-president at professional investment information and credit rating agency ICRA, says that the electricity supply has been able to keep up with the demand growth as reflected in the relatively low energy and peak deficit levels.
“While the deficit levels went up in April 2022 amid the double-digit demand growth and concerns on coal availability, they came down thereafter and have largely remained well below 1.0%. The country’s power supply deficit stood at 4% in 2022-23 when the peak demand for power touched 215.89 GW,” he adds.
Space jam
Congested streets, overcrowded public transport, traffic jams and massive urban housing shortage are some of the other issues in the urban landscape that seem routine. As per the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, around 19 million households have a shortage of decent housing in cities leading to a slum population of 65.5 million living in 13.7 million slum households in million-plus cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. “When it comes to urban planning, Indian cities tend to take this non-seriously. In many smaller towns, we don’t even have urban planning departments or experts as part of the administration or master planning decision makers. As a result, the haphazard expansion of urban areas continues. We wake up too late. Only when a crisis like the one in Bengaluru arises, do we realise that what our environmentalists and urbanists have been talking or writing about is indeed valid,” says architect and urbanist Nikita Verma.
Urban planning of housing and infrastructure does not seem to keep up with the growing strain on its resources because of increasing population flinging to urban areas as they are central to every kind of opportunity and facility from employment to healthcare. “The growth of urban population including migration to cities far outpaces the growth of requisite housing and infrastructure. Even though urban planning is carried out scientifically and with a holistic view, the actual creation of infrastructure takes much longer by which time the needs of the cities have grown beyond what the infrastructure was planned for,” says Aneesh Jain of Xynteo.
Cities serve as hubs of opportunity, drawing people from rural areas seeking better prospects. “However, the rapid influx of population often overwhelms urban infrastructure and services. This strain can lead to significant challenges, particularly for vulnerable segments of society. Marginalised communities, in particular, may face compromised access to essential resources and support systems as cities struggle to meet increasing demands. Addressing this disparity requires comprehensive urban planning and investment in infrastructure and social services,” says Poonam Sewak of Safe Water Network India.
In this context, the issue of reverse migration is also seen from the urban areas when the quality of life gets further downgraded. This became quite evident during the Covid-19 pandemic induced migrant exodus and urban experts are of the view that such reverse migration is still in process because of urban landscape’s inability to support the livelihoods. “People come to the cities looking for better opportunities but the improvement they expect in quality of life is slowly actually becoming a downgrade. There is a reverse migration happening amongst a section of the population which can move back to smaller towns and cities to live a better quality of life,” says Jain of Xynteo.
Water woes
Cities across the country have been reporting water shortage for some reason or the other quite often. Whether it is Chennai’s reservoirs running dry, Delhi’s depleting groundwater or Yamuna river exceeding ammonia concentration, making water non-consumable, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s frequent imposition of water cuts due to dwindling water stocks in Mumbai, Jaipur’s primary surface water source Ramgarh Dam’s unviability, compelling groundwater reliance, or Lucknow and Bathinda’s aquifer depletion, water crisis is now a norm.
Cities that bear the burden of aspirational Indians’ hopes witnessing influx of migration for a better standard of living and livelihood are not able to deal with something elemental to life—water. A 2018 study published in the journal Nature projected that by 2050 nearly 160 million Indians will be living in cities that are water-stressed. The study also said that 30 Indian cities would face a ‘grave water risk’ by 2050. “The crisis will worsen in coming years as global temperatures continue to rise and have a cascading impact on lives and living systems,” warns Manu Gupta of SEEDS.
“With the intensity and frequency of hotter summers increasing over the Indian subcontinent, the water crisis is likely to become common and acute, especially in cities situated over the Deccan plateaus and in arid and semi-arid climatic regions. Besides Bengaluru, cities like Chennai, Hyderabad and Jodhpur, and even urban centres in hilly regions like Shimla, are quite vulnerable,” explains Bharat Sharma of IWMI.
