07/10/2021 - Government Policies | Mainstorming

IAS Parliament 3 years

KEY POINTS

· Cities are drivers of economic growth. As India urbanises, it must ensure that its cities offer a decent quality of life and facilitate job creation.

· These imperatives are fundamental to India’s ambitions of becoming a five trillion-dollar economy by 2025 and a 10 trillion-dollar economy by 2030.

· From a population of 377 million in 2011, Indian cities are projected to house 870 million people by 2050, according to the UN’s projections — by far the highest among all nations.

· Water supply is unreliable. Mountains of solid waste sit on the fringes of our cities. Poor drainage, congested roads and deteriorating air quality are other challenges.

· Dense cities are harbingers of infrastructure-related economies but are vulnerable to the spread of disease, as evident from the Covid-19 pandemic.

· A proper balance between agglomeration economies and manageability as well as density and distance will hold the key in determining the right size for our cities.

· Capital markets are an obvious choice but involving them would require pricing basic services in a manner that allows a reasonable return on investments.

· An urbanisation policy should take cognisance of future mobility patterns. Increasingly, travel patterns are getting limited to shorter distances, requiring more non-motorised transport infrastructure rather than high-speed systems better suited to longer trips.