Not just surviving: Finding breathing room for India’s cities to thrive

In face of the changing climate, the plight of Indian cities—marked by seasonal high pollution, extreme heat, urban flooding, and water scarcity—is worsened by poor urban planning. Experts say solutions exist and swift policy action can still save these bustling grounds

Rajkumari, a migrant househelp in her early twenties working in Faridabad, Haryana, has come to accept extreme heat and pollution as constants in her life. “The pollution causes frequent headaches, and I would like to stay at home, but I can’t afford to miss a single day’s work,” she says. During scorching summers, her asbestos-roofed home in an overcrowded slum becomes unbearable. She takes her young son along while working, spending entire days in her employers’ relatively cooler homes.

“When returning from work during the evening, I take some ice from a client’s house and use it to keep the water matka in my house cold, as we don’t have a refrigerator,” says Rajkumari.

An hour away, in upmarket Gurgaon, sports event manager Shreyas Bhatia, in his mid-30s, faces a different kind of reckoning. “If I have to live here in the future, I won’t have kids. I can’t bring them up in such an environment,” he says, referencing the region’s worsening air quality.

This year, pollution levels in Delhi peaked twice – first was just after Diwali, and the second time was during mid-November, when there was a sudden cold wave in Delhi and the AQI hit 1,600 — which is equivalent to smoking 77 cigarettes in one day, according to an AQI calculator based on a report published in Berkeley Earth.

This is 32 times higher than the WHO recommended safe levels.

The situation was so dire that the thick smog that enveloped northern India, stretching till Lahore, could be seen from outer space.

Although the situation has improved with Delhi’s AQI level coming down to a still ‘very unhealthy’ category of 253, according to IQAir’s measurements, the broader crisis remains unresolved. Indian cities like Kolkata, Patna, Lucknow, and Kanpur continue grappling with air quality ranging from ‘poor’ to ‘severe,’ while even coastal cities like Mumbai face significant pollution levels. Meanwhile, water crises, traffic congestion, overpopulation, and toxic landfills plague urban centres across the country.

But since such cities provide employment, and relatively higher salaries, people keep flocking to them. The top spot that any Indian city claimed in the Global Liveability Index 2024 was 141 – jointly by Mumbai and Delhi – out of a total of 173 cities globally.

The deteriorating conditions have prompted public debates about the future of India’s cities. Following Delhi’s severe pollution this season, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor even suggested reconsidering the location of India’s capital. This raises a pressing question: Can Indian cities be made livable through urgent policy reforms and sustainable urban planning, or will environmental degradation continue to erode the quality of life for millions?

Living in the new normal

In Delhi-NCR at least, normal life has come to a standstill for now.

“The persistent smog has drastically changed how we experience life in the city,” says Chandreyee Bhaumik, a communications professional residing in Delhi for the past ten years. “Simple joys like dining in open-air restaurants, going for evening strolls, or celebrating festivals outdoors have become rare,” she adds.

Situated in the heart of northern India, landlocked Delhi experiences the extremes of seasons – searing summers hitting temperatures of nearly 50°C, which can drop to as low as 1.5°C in winter. Increasingly, there’s also been flooding due to extreme rainfall, especially in the floodplains of the polluted Yamuna.

Now, the cold season also brings opportunities to enjoy outdoor activities as well as snug jackets and sweaters. But the drop in temperatures reduces wind movement to almost stationary, which reduces the dispersal of pollutants. Also, the cold causes the hot air to float up to the upper atmosphere, while the cold air, along with the pollutants, remains below, leading to the deadly smog. 

And hence, Delhi NCR experiences two months of choking air pollution, which disrupts how people experience life.

“The dense pollution has made even routine tasks like stepping out for groceries or commuting to work a challenge,” says Bhaumik, adding that it is worse for children. 

“We have installed 32 stations with smart monitors in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. PM 2.5 is very very high, with values exceeding 1,400. The peak of pollution during 16th-17th November correlates with pollution in Punjab. In Delhi itself, it’s from local sources and meteorological conditions,” says SK Dhaka, an atmospheric physicist who teaches at Delhi University.

This work is part of the ongoing Aakash Project, a collaboration between Japanese and Indian scientists, supported by the Kyoto-based Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), to achieve cleaner air, improved public health and sustainable agriculture in states around Delhi.

Due to such toxic air, schools were mandated to shut down in Delhi NCR, and reopened only in the first week of December. Instead of playing and enjoying the company of their peers, children were confined to their homes, attending online classes in isolation, much like it was during the pandemic.

Biswajeet Dutta, a banker based in Noida, stopped sending his kid to school as air pollution worsened post Diwali. He himself is having a tough time adjusting, as he’s unable to workout or go for walks and runs. 

“I work out to stay healthy, but if I step out for such activities, I will fall sick,” says Dutta. He now steps out of his home only for necessary activities.

Ragesree Bose, another banker residing in the green pockets in Chittaranjan Park in Delhi, feels her health deteriorates when she commutes to her workplace in Gurgaon. 

“I was having such breathing difficulties that I couldn’t speak. It gets better when I return home as the AQI in CR Park is lower compared to other traffic-heavy areas,” she says, adding that despite using an air purifier for the entire night, the AQI level failed to drop below 300, which means the air inside her home was also severe. 

While one might think that such terrible air quality is prevalent only in a city, rural areas are also not being spared. 

“The situation across the entire Indo-Gangetic Plain towards the Bay of Bengal is terrible. We measured pollution every 2-3 km from Haridwar (in Uttarakhand) to Delhi (distance between two cities is 214 km), and observed that pollution levels were at 200-250 AQI even in rural areas, which rises to 400 AQI near Delhi,” says Prof. Dhaka.

“We do not have an immediate solution in the next three years. Crop burning can be controlled, which can reduce pollution by 20-30%. But meteorology cannot change, it’s not in our hands,” he says, adding that moving away from Delhi NCR for these couple of months is what people can attempt.

Moving to cleaner pastures

For many, permanent relocation seems like the only escape.

The Vedwan family made the shift from Delhi to the lofty terrains of Shimla in Himachal Pradesh in 2022 because of pollution. Their kids were falling sick and catching throat infections while in school, so they were looking for work opportunities elsewhere.

“We wanted a better lifestyle, so we jumped at the opportunity when my wife got to shift to Shimla,” says Sandeep Vedwan, a 42-year-old financial consultant. 

For 33-year-old Snigdha Singh, the desire to have her two-year-child grow up with family in Delhi turned out to be a nightmare. “My baby was barely two months old when he got his first asthma attack, and had to be hospitalised. He was nebulised every 6-12 hours for the 10-12 days he was there. In 2022, he got an asthma attack during Diwali when he was just a year old. This time, the nebuliser did not work, so they shifted him to an inhaler,” she says.

Despite having three air purifiers in her Lutyens residence, which is a relatively greener part of the city, things did not improve for her kid. On the doctor’s advice, and to prevent her son from developing lung problems, her family decided to shift to Port Blair, away from metro life.

People are becoming wary of putting down roots there as well. “We have already reorganised major life decisions based on where we live. We are not investing in real estate in the long term. Only people who don’t have a choice will retire here. But that’s like surrendering,” says 39-year-old Gurgaon resident Nandini.

As of now, while there is no evidence that there’s been a drop in demand for real estate in the region due to environmental reasons, that may not necessarily be the case some years later.

“If there is no resolution to the air pollution problem, the desirability of people wanting to stay here will go down in the next five years. Not just pollution, but other environmental issues like toxic Yamuna waters and flooding, which are not limited to only Delhi. These environmental issues will impact not only demand, but also value of properties. Once demand goes down, so will valuation,” says Pankaj Kapoor of Liases Foras, a non-broking real estate research firm.

However, urbanist Ravichandar, has a differing viewpoint.

“At the end of the day, people won’t move out. You make your peace with it, since shifting could mean from the frying pan to the fire,” he says. 

More importantly, moving to another Indian city brings a different set of problems. “Bangalore’s weather and air might be better than Delhi’s, but it has a water scarcity and transportation problem,” says Ravichandar, adding that people’s decisions to live in a particular city is dependent on relative merits provided by that particular city and their priorities. 

Instead, solutions can be worked upon.

“For Delhi NCR, the thermal power plants in the periphery of the region have to be moved away and make a faster switch to renewable energy. Governments must be prepared to give loss compensation for stubble burning to farmers, as society is paying a higher price. We also have to focus economic growth elsewhere. Our cities cannot be permanent construction centres,” he says.

He suggests having a clear, articulate goal regarding how we want our cities to be and look like, and working backwards can give results. He cites Bangalore as an example. There’s both flooding during monsoon as well as water scarcity during summer.

“The solutions for both are known – a better drainage system, recharging groundwater and not overconcretising the city. But these measures are not taken. When the crisis happens, the government puts in some stop gap measures,” he says.

Failed governance a key factor

The biggest factor which plays a key role in the health of cities is governance. “Elected leaders hold office for five years, so there’s not much thought given to long term projects,” says Naresh Narasimhan, an architect based in the south Indian metropolis of Bangalore.

“Politicians don’t follow the 3Ps of good governance—policies, process, and finally, projects. It takes 1-2 years each to formulate a long-term policy, then set a process to achieve that, only after which the government can embark on a project to execute. But politicians focus only on small-time projects, which solve nothing in the long run,” he says.

Delhi’s air pollution is a classic example—smog towers are ineffective, and the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) measures, which only reduce some major pollution sources like vehicular, industrial and construction, are activated only after the pollution breaches critical levels, but does not eliminate the sources of the pollution, according to Prof. SK Dhaka.

Lack of enforcement is another big issue, according to Narasimhan. In Delhi’s pollution case, even though the same political party is in power in both Punjab and Delhi, it cannot stop stubble burning in Punjab, which adds to Delhi’s pollution, he says. Despite there being a nationwide ban on firecrackers, it cannot be stopped. 

Narasimhan also mapped out Mumbai’s flooding problem. The average height of the city is 14 metres above sea level, and the rivers which run through it are choked with sewage, so naturally the city gets overwhelmed when it experiences heavy rainfall.

This is an engineering problem, but not being able to solve it lies in the complex political and administrative state of our cities, according to Narasimhan.

Ultimately, the reason why people live in cities boils down to economic opportunities. “Doomsday predictions are unlikely to happen. Cities occupy 3% of the total land surface of the whole world, but 75% of the economic ability of a country comes from its cities,” says.

Delhi’s population density in 2024 is nearly 14,500 people per square kilometre, which is 96 times higher than India’s average population density of 488 people per square kilometre.

There’s also a significant amount of migration in India, which adds to the number of people residing in cities. A survey of 410,818 Indians (236,279 being in rural areas and 174,539 in urban areas) done to assess migration data between 2020 and 2021, found that around 18.9% people migrated from rural to urban areas, while 15.9% migrated from one urban area to another. 

But citizens continue to face the problems that each city brings.

“People are aware of issues plaguing cities, but still they choose to stay. Only people who are economically privileged – whether inherited or created wealth – are able to make the choice to move out. The majority of Indians don’t have the choice,” says Narasimhan.

For the less privileged, living in such cities is the only way to earn.

Sundari, a Delhi-based cook, migrated to the city for work. But the harsh Delhi winter is brutal on her, as she has to step out of her house to go to work at 6 am in chilling temperatures, use cold water for washing and cooking, and work at houses where no sunlight is available. 

For economically weaker sections, the levels of pollution faced are higher as they are more exposed to outside air. A comparative analysis by the New York Times of two Delhi kids from different economic backgrounds found that the kid from the poorer family was exposed to four times more pollution.

More than pollution, extreme heat during summer wreaks havoc on the health of the most vulnerable sections of society. 70-year-old Ramesh, who sells vegetables on a push cart, walking in different residential colonies throughout the day, finds that it has become increasingly difficult to work over the past few years, as compared to two decades ago.

“There is no respite from the heat. There aren’t many trees anymore, where I can stop and rest. I’m just helpless, but I have to manage. I just keep drinking water and walking,” he says.

Change is possible

Bangalore can learn lessons from Singapore, which suffered from severe water scarcity in the 1980s. It built infrastructure to capture and reuse rainwater, and recycle wastewater. Today, it has implemented sponge city principles to further increase the city’s rainwater retainment capacity.

Delhi could also take lessons from Beijing and Seoul. The former managed to clean up its air within a few years, while Seoul cleaned up the Han river with $470 million dollars between 1982-1987. The cleanup happened over a 23 mile stretch, reduced water pollution levels by five times, and expanded the city’s area near the river bank by 1,730 acres using dredged up material from the river.

While Indian cities can adopt some strategies from the successes of these cities, what it direly needs is deep decentralization wherever possible, and appropriate centralisation where necessary, according to Ravichandar. 

“There are multiple agencies in our existing government structure, but there is no clear authority which is in charge of the city. Nor is there the concept of integrating efforts for outcomes,” he says, adding that an orchestra without a conductor produces noise, not music.

That’s exactly what is happening in Indian cities. Bangalore intends to spend ₹19,000 crore to build a tunnel road, still putting its trust in the faster movement of vehicles to ease traffic congestions, while not focusing on scaling up public transport.

Again, storm water drains are used to dispose of sewage. Naturally, during heavy rainfall, these drains are not able to perform their intended task, leading to urban flooding, says Ravichandar. 

“Nothing in our governance structure is focused on integration and coordination. That is the problem I would fix at a structural level. But the urban problem is way too complex for the government to fix it alone. Some level of private-public partnership is required,” he adds. 

Narasimhan cites London as an example of how a city can adapt for a better future. “It had multiple modes of transport, which was integrated into one organisation, Transport for London, and took away planning power from every other organisation.”
Another solution to ease the burden on existing cities would be to build more cities for residential purposes. But India does not have a great track record when it comes to new, planned cities. The picturesque town of Lavasa, Maharashtra, which attracted crores of private investment a few decades back, is declining due to corruption.

Indian cities are at a critical juncture. For urgent, meaningful change to occur, governance, infrastructure, and public health reforms have to converge. While the challenges may seem overwhelming, coordinated action could still offer a path toward livable cities.

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Shaswata Kundu Chaudhuri

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