Instituting environmental sustainability and climate resilience into the governance process: Exploring the potential of new urban development schemes in India

Background

India is on the cusp of a major transformation in terms of how it translates and directs urbanization. The recently announced flagship schemes of the Government of India, the ‘Smart Cities’ ¹ scheme, the AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) ² scheme, and the Housing for All ³ scheme have brought increased attention to urban areas in India. While the Smart Cities and AMRUT schemes primarily aim at improving amenities and infrastructure in 100 and 500 urban areas respectively, the Housing for All by 2022 scheme is an initiative of the government to provide low cost affordable housing solutions with an initial focus on 500 Class I cities in India. Planned in phases, the schemes offer various avenues for addressing some of the most daunting challenges that cities in India face today, including climate change impacts and disaster risks.

While India has faced multiple climate-related hazards in recent years, it can only be seen and felt that frequency and intensity of extreme events in the Indian subcontinent has begun to increase. Between 2013 and 2014, the country witnessed three major cyclones, Hailen, Phallin, and Hudhud, that caused havoc in the coastal regions of India; the latter being said to have caused maximum damage to the industrial city of Visakhapatnam – an estimated total loss of INR 9000 crores (over US$15 billion). In 2013, a massive cloudburst and a subsequent lake outburst in the upper reaches of the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand led to massive destruction because of floods and heavy rainfall wiping away towns and settlements in the valley of Kedarnath. In 2014, the Kashmir valley in India faced massive floods and heavy rainfall, affecting the cities of Jammu and Srinagar amongst other regions in the state. The floods repeated again in 2015. Along similar lines, Mumbai experienced an extreme loss of property and life due to heavy rains and floods in 2005. This flooding was once again repeated in 2013, displaying poor level of preparedness and emergency planning in the country.

Such examples not only assign value to the fact that cities and city regions need to account for climate calamities and climate change in their planning, development, and emergency planning parameters, but also project the low level of priority given to climate preparedness and resilience in the development planning process. In this context resilience is the degree to which cities are able to withstand alteration and reorganize around a new set of structures and processes (Alberti et al., 2003; Holling, 2001). Some definitions also define resilience as a virtue of a society that is flexible and able to adjust in the face of uncertainty and surprise (Barnett, 2001; Berkes and Folke, 1998). Further, resilience building, particularly as it relates to climate impacts, generally needs to be supported by an integrated, cross-cutting policy approach that integrates resilience measures and resilience thinking into national development planning (UNDP-UNEP, 2011).

However, according to Friend and Jarvie (2014), ‘the challenge is less about mainstreaming climate resilience into failed governance processes and practices, than it is about creating the conditions for urban governance that can take on board the principles of resilience’. India is even a step further removed from this, where climate change and its impacts – whether slow onset impacts or rapid impacts such as extreme events – still have to be accounted for in the regular development planning processes in cities. The infrastructure and services that India plans to build and the land use that is proposed for various functions of city systems increasingly need to account for climate change, regardless of how distant these threats may appear. Unfortunately, climate change is often not only looked at as global phenomena, but also perceived as something too distant in time to impact current decision making. Recent impacts of extreme weather events, however, only establishes climate change as a threat India is increasingly facing.

There have been clear entry points in the governance system and policy making in India through which the climate resilience agenda could have been integrated into urban development planning in Indian cities (Sharma and Tomar, 2010). The foremost of these was the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (NMSH), one of the eight flagship Missions of the Government of India under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). Unfortunately, the very realization of this need to institute the agenda in various channels of governance has been largely absent. In recognizing the increasing need for instituting climate resilience in the city planning and development regime in India, an effort is made here to understand the existing urban development scenario and explore the possibilities of mainstreaming climate resilience in the current governance process. The key objectives of this paper are therefore twofold: to understand the need for building climate resilience in Indian cities and to explore possible avenues of integrating the climate resilience agenda into the governance process.

To achieve these objectives, this paper discusses the existing urban scenario in India, bringing forward the key growth trends and challenges faced by cities today. It further discusses the recently launched urban development schemes in India including Smart Cities, AMRUT, and the Housing for All schemes. By doing so, it gives an overview of the existing governance policies or processes and explores possible avenues or entry points for integrating climate resilience into the urban development agenda through these schemes.

Current growth trends and challenges in India

Cities at different stages of the development curve face different challenges. Existing literature suggests that with increasing urbanization, the concerns of cities have shifted from the provision of basic infrastructure and municipal services (such as water supply, sanitation, public transport, etc.) to dealing with negative impacts of growth (such as congestion, waste management, air pollution, etc.), and further to dealing with global environmental challenges (such as carbon emissions, climate change, etc.) (Wankhade, 2013). In India, cities have expanded rapidly without sufficient formal planning, particularly post-1990s. The result is seemingly chaotic, and has led to a development pattern that is not only detrimental to the environment and citizens but also inhibits further development (Bouton et al., 2013).

At present, only 32 percent of the total Indian population lives in urban areas, ⁴ yet there are still considerable urban challenges India faces. The majority of the urbanization is taking place on the fringe of cities, much of it is unplanned and outside the purview of city codes and bylaws, and imposes high costs, particularly on the environment. Unprecedented growth is leaving municipal governments with critical infrastructure shortages and service gaps (NCER, 2014). Estimates show that the costs of environmental degradation, largely driven by sprawling cities and related unplanned development patterns, are enormous, reducing India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 5.7 percent or about YS$80 billion annually (Singh, 2015).

Provision of urban infrastructure services has also failed to keep pace with the unprecedented urbanization levels and rising demand for services in Indian cities. Statistics indicate that one quarter of India resides in urban slums; half of the urban areas in India do not have any sewage treatment; and only 6 percent of cities and towns have a public transport system (Singh, 2015). India at present is already challenged in terms of water availability, and is rapidly progressing towards being a water stressed state. ⁵ With increasing population, annual water demand in India is expected to reach a remarkable 1500 billion cubic meters (bcm) by 2030, while the current supply is only about 744 bcm, suggesting a huge demand–supply gap. Overexploitation of groundwater, declining water availability, and deterioration in surface and groundwater quality is an outcome of this gap and remains a constant challenge (TERI and AMCHAM, 2014).

In the power sector, while access to electricity supply is not a major challenge at present, the quality of supply is an area of concern. The demand for electricity from buildings alone is expected to triple from 2010–2011 levels by 2020. For residential buildings alone, estimates show that energy need for heating and cooling shall increase by 180 percent by 2021 over the present baseline, and energy need for lighting in residential segments shall rise by 80 percent (TERI and AMCHAM, 2014). At present, about 70 percent of India’s energy generation capacity is from fossil fuels, with coal accounting for 40 percent of India’s total energy consumption, followed by crude oil and natural gas at 24 percent and 6 percent, respectively. ⁶ With increasing population and increasing energy demands, energy security is increasingly becoming a major area of concern at the national level. Penetration of cleaner fuels and technologies, however, has received some attention at the policy level in recent years and efforts have and continue to be made in this direction, albeit with limited success. Promoting electric and hybrid vehicles under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 and facilitating a shift of public transport fleet from diesel to cleaner fuels such as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in cities such as Delhi are some of the initiatives taken up by the government in this area.

Urban mobility is another service area experiencing serious demand–supply gaps. At present, only 65 cities in India have organized bus-based public transport services (NTDPC, GoI, 2014). In the absence of adequate and quality public transport services, dependence on private vehicles has increased in cities, resulting in greater dependence on fossil fuels and an increase in emissions from the transport sector. Greater traffic congestion, increasing travel times, and decreasing productivity levels are other negative impacts of the current private motor vehicle-led growth in Indian cities. Another challenge faced by cities in India is the rapidly depleting quality of air, with calls for immediate attention. According to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, 37 cities in India featured on the list of the world’s 100 most polluted cities in terms of concentration levels of particulate matter (i.e. PM10 levels) in 2014. ⁷ Furthermore, there are key challenges with increasing levels of solid waste production, with India’s urban areas generating more than 100,000 Million Tons (MT) of waste per day (India, 2014). The inability to effectively manage and dispose of generated waste also pose serious health risks to urban populations and the environment. Converting waste into energy projects is also a missed opportunity in view of the lack of capacity and financial resources in Indian cities, and insufficient attention is paid to rising pollution due to sewage and industrial discharge into water bodies. Finally, a lack of adequate health infrastructure, education, and green spaces represent additional challenges faced by urban areas.

While enabling the supply of adequate services requires attention, it is also realized that municipal services, wherever available, face issues of old and out-dated infrastructure, use of energy-intensive equipment, and capacity saturation (HPEC, GoI, 2011). One of the key issues for the poor state of urban services and infrastructure deficits in Indian cities is the lack of adequate resources, with many municipalities finding it difficult to execute the routine tasks of running urban services. Increasing costs of provision of infrastructure services due to rapid urban sprawl and haphazard development further places extreme pressure on the already stretched municipal budgets (HPEC, GoI, 2011). Despite this, at present there are enough technology options available for smarter management of the city infrastructure and services. What is missing, however, is an effective arrangement in terms of institutional mechanisms and capacity at the municipal level to be able to implement them in a sustainable manner (HPEC, GoI, 2011; Sharma and Tomar, 2010).

In addition to the above, climate change is increasingly emerging as one of the greatest challenges for Indian cities, which has partly been accelerated by the energy and resource-intensive growth trajectory followed in urban India. The impacts of climate change in terms of highly erratic weather patterns and extreme environmental events (such as frequent flooding and water logging, heat and cold waves, sea-level rise, and storm surges) have and are expected to continue to contribute to heavy loss of life and property. For example, India suffered a loss of over INR 10 billion (US$150 million) due to the adverse winter weather in January 2013 alone (TERI, 2014). Development goals of cities are also seriously undermined by climate change impacts. Recent examples, such as heavy monsoon rains in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, flooding events in Srinagar and Bihar, and massive destruction caused by cyclones like Hud-hud hitting Vishakhapatnam in 2014, point towards a need to increase the preparedness of Indian cities for extreme events and foster climate-resilient urban development and planning. As cities in India are grappling with a multitude of development challenges, including unsteady and inequitable economic growth and rising poverty levels, provision of services and infrastructure development is critical (MoUD, GoI, 2014). Moreover, it is imperative to push cities further towards environment sustainability if a larger goal of ‘smart growth’ is to be achieved.

Environmental sustainability in India

Environmental sustainability in India, until recently, has been associated with a small number of specific issues such as disposal of waste and air or water pollution. (Wankhade, 2013). At the policy level, specific sectoral policies (such as the National Urban Sanitation Policy (NUSP), Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Rules, National Urban Transport Policy, and others) address sustainability in their particular domain. However, issues addressing sectoral interlinkages are still missing at the policy level. At the city level, the traditional approach to dealing with environment concerns has largely been to address sector-specific issues individually (Wankhade, 2013), often resulting in macro-level sustainability goals getting lost or neglected. For example, in solid waste management, ensuring 100 percent collection of waste takes priority over safe disposal of different kinds of wastes (MoUD, GoI, 2009). Also, although the relevance of linkages between certain sectors is recognized (for example, water and sanitation or public transport and land use, etc), planning for each of these sectors is often done in isolation. Currently, there are insufficient mechanisms to ensure integration across sectors or different levels of governance.

Development initiatives in India taken up to deal with other concerns, such as hazards and disaster management or building climate resilience, have often been more sporadic decisions pushed by international donor agencies such as the Asian Development Bank or World Bank rather than larger government programs. One major reason for this is that environmental concerns are not inherent in the overall development agenda, which reflects negatively on existing policies and mandates. Also, the existing institutional mechanisms in cities in India do not offer an integrated working environment, but rather they look at various aspects of development in isolation. This isolated, compartmentalized approach has failed in promoting cohesive urban development and has resulted in extensive costs to the environment, economy, and society.

At present, the Government of India has mandated Environment Impact Assessments (EIAs) of development projects ‘to gauge the potential environmental impact of an economic project so as to allow for measures to minimize that impact’ (Chowdhary, 2014). An EIA helps in comparing various alternatives for a project and seeks to identify the one with least environmental costs, and is a mandatory requirement under the Environmental Protection Act, 1986, for 29 categories of developmental activities (including mining, thermal power, infrastructure development, etc.) seeking central clearance. However, the notification contains an exclusionary clause to the effect that EIAs would only apply in the case of projects involving investments of INR 50 crores and above. ⁸ At the city level, therefore, limited attention is given to environmental audits or assessments of relatively small-scale urban infrastructure projects. In view of the inadequacies of the existing environmental mechanisms to sufficiently address the environmental concerns in cities, ensuring urban and environmental sustainability and promoting resilience within the existing framework has proven challenging.

Literature suggests that integration of environmental sustainability in economic decision making and city planning processes is critical for ‘smart growth’ (Wankhade, 2013). A lack of regard for sustainability not only leads to environment degradation and a poor quality of life, but is also detrimental for future growth prospects due to depletion of resources (Bouton et al., 2013). It is therefore increasingly important to recognize the costs of environment degradation and impacts of climate change attached to current patterns of urbanization and integrate ‘environmental thinking’ into city planning processes. The development of smart cities seems to be an opportune juncture for rapidly urbanizing Indian cities to do exactly this.

India’s flagship schemes on urban development and avenues for integrating the resilience agenda

The launch of the new flagship program ‘The Smart Cities Mission’, and the AMRUT Mission and the Housing for All schemes, by the Government of India bring greater attention to urban areas in India. Increasingly, both citizens in India and the Government of India are linking their aspirations for livable cities to the execution of these schemes.

Opportunities and challenges for ‘mainstreaming’ resilience into development planning processes

Research suggests there may be deeper relationships between climate change vulnerability, development deficits, and existing governance and institutional challenges (Reed et al., 2015). Often, the role of effective resilience building through regulations such as zoning norms, building by-laws and codes, and planning norms is highlighted (Friend et al., 2014; UNISDR, 2012; Verweij and Thompson, 2006). However, this is also increasingly countered on the ground that the resilience agenda is frequently expected to be taken forward through regulatory channels that are already dysfunctional or are poorly implemented (Birkmann et al., 2010). Further research also counters the notion of mainstreaming climate resilience into the development planning processes due to the very reasons Birkmann et al. (2010) highlights. Also, the governance processes that would be the potential carrier of resilience agendas have been weak and ineffective, particularly in the developing country contexts (Friend and Jarvie, 2014). Further, Reed et al. (2015) argue that resilience could be better propagated and implemented through development projects and programs and introduced as experiments and ‘real time’ demonstration of resilience and its benefits.

Schemes such as the Smart Cities mission that emphasize participatory planning and project designs while also looking at innovative approaches to achieving development gains have great potential in designing and delivering demonstrative projects and approaches to foster resilience. Resilience projects could not only be planned and designed in the aegis of these flagship schemes, but also once implemented may become lighthouse projects for other cities to follow suit. Resilience project design and implementation within these schemes could not only bring tangible benefits to cities, but also provide deeper knowledge of resilience as it is implemented and positive benefits for urban governance processes. This has actually been demonstrated under the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) initiative, where implemented projects have provided new knowledge, engaged with various stakeholders and citizens in decision making processes, and experimented with new strategies for development and planning responsive to climate change (Reed et al., 2015). The ACCCRN experience (ISET, 2013) has demonstrated that urban resilience is a long-term, iterative process that helps in identifying vulnerabilities, with resilience actions and responses to vulnerabilities understood through robust risk analysis processes coupled with deeper stakeholder engagement.

There is potential for scaling up climate resilience in the context of Smart Cities. If a larger body of successful demonstration could be achieved, this may then be put forth within policies, mandates, and regulations that drive project design, implementation, and planning decisions. However, as opposed to testing solutions through schemes such as Smart Cities that have immediate project implementation potential, a challenge to mainstreaming resilience into policy planning frameworks is the fact that policy making and mandate creation are largely politically driven. These are often processes that have long gestation periods, whereas resilience is an iterative, context-specific process that needs constant evolution and learning to eliminate inherent development challenges and reorganize itself through the process of learning (ISET, 2013).

It is also to be noted that resilience mainstreaming, however important, cannot and should not overlook existing urban challenges and gaps in governance (Friend and Jarvie, 2014). Ecological viability, social inclusion, and integrating resilience agendas into development practice are among the foremost challenges of governance. Yet, policy decisions regarding urban development are often made with the practical constraints that geographic boundaries, urban populations, and development pressures pose (Friend and Jarvie, 2014). Mainstreaming resilience rather requires an acknowledgment of the dynamics and challenges of urban development, in addition to the gaps in the system, institutions, and governance. This may require innovative thinking and devising mechanisms that complement the present systems and mechanisms of urban development, as well as innovations that make room for new multidisciplinary planning approaches.

Despite this, urban planning mandates in India are still quite dissociated from environmental issues and issues of disaster risk reduction (HPEC, GoI, 2011). With the advent of the NAPCC led by then Prime Minister in 2008, state action plans on climate change have been prepared as an agenda floated by the Government of India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). However, the actual implementation of this agenda in an urban space is yet to be achieved. As per the Constitution of India, urban development is a state responsibility, and therefore the actual implementation of projects/schemes and any policy driven by the central government requires that it is sanctioned and implemented by the willingness of the state government. Exacerbating this further, most of the states in India have not implemented the 74th Constitution Amendment Act (1992), which devolves important powers to the ULBs for planning their cities. Due to lack of a proper politico-legal set-up, mainstreaming resilience would take longer than needed and would also require jurisdictional understanding and institutional coordination mechanisms to be put in place first.

Given the current constraints and opportunities of the Smart Cities agenda, it is possible, yet uncertain, how the actions needed for building resilience could eventually take shape. Early Smart City plans from candidate cities showcased online in 2015 by the MoUD and in news coverage point towards cities’ intentions to include environmental considerations, disaster risk reduction, and climate concerns in Smart City development planning. ¹² However, it remains to be seen what kind of resilience projects will emerge in the later stages of the scheme and how these will be funded under the scheme itself. While challenging, it would be prudent if these projects are integrated to link with other relevant parallel initiatives at the state or national level, with the goal to achieve complementarity of intent and vision.

Discussion and conclusion

To enable and achieve smart growth, cities will increasingly need to invest in infrastructure that ‘reduces emissions, waste production, and water use, as the way India develops, builds and renovates its cities will determine their ecological sustainability in the coming decades’ (Bouton et al., 2013). A common view is that cities in India should aim to leapfrog conventional development paths and work towards a more environmentally aware approach to development wherein cities aim to ‘do more with less’ in a more efficient and environmentally sustainable manner. This shift can be enabled by learning from examples from across the globe that have been successful at reducing the negative impacts of various infrastructure sectors and promoting smart growth, and assessing their replicability to the context of Indian cities. While developing and building green infrastructure is considered crucial, reconfiguring existing infrastructure can also be an important step in this direction. ¹³

Cities have examined and explored the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and innovative solutions to decrease resource consumption and improve operational inefficiencies of existing systems. There are numerous international examples where city governments have invested in technology to improve the resource and system efficiencies (Bouton et al., 2013; TERI and AMCHAM, 2014), such as installing smart meters, smart grids, or other similar innovations. The introduction of measures such as pricing, regulation, and others can also help in improving the way resources are used in cities. For example, citizens in Zurich are required to dispose of garbage in bags that cost around US$4.25 each. As a result, household rubbish has decreased by 40 percent, with the average Zurich resident generating 25 percent less waste than the average European (Bouton et al., 2013). Similarly, Singapore has resorted to technology-based pricing policies such as congestion pricing, so as to effectively manage travel demand and tackle the problems of traffic congestion. Cities such as Bogota, Ahmedabad, and others have introduced rapid bus transit systems with special bus lanes that enable moving people at faster speeds and also improve local air pollution levels. ¹⁴ Smart solutions such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and hydraulic modeling for 24/7 water supply, online water quality monitoring systems, systems for billing and collection of revenue, real time solid waste management monitoring systems, and smart street lighting are other initiatives that can improve the overall sustainability of urban and municipal service delivery (TERI and AMCHAM, 2014).

The Smart Cities mission undeniably offers an opportunity to redefine the way cities are perceived, run, and managed in India. While the mission envisages the implementation of the smart cities vision through an area-based development approach, it is expected that multiple projects would be taken up across a city, incorporating different technologies, by single or multiple agencies. Moreover, the majority of this development is expected to happen in a ‘consultation mode’, and aims to attract considerable capital investment from both public as well as private sectors. It is important, however, that these cities do not look at the scheme only as an avenue for funding urban infrastructure projects, but rather should see it as an opportunity to visualize and model urban infrastructure systems that help in ensuring and managing urban sustainability in the long run.

India at present needs livable cities that provide not only adequate basic infrastructure and services, but also ample employment opportunities for all that contribute to equitable and sustainable economic growth with minimal environmental impacts. In seeking to achieve this, cities should acknowledge the need for environment sustainability and climate resilience across sectors and at all levels of governance, rather than limiting these to certain issues or sectors, such as operations and management of municipal services, waste disposal, or air and water pollution. While addressing these issues within individual sectors is important, it is also essential to understand that environmental sustainability is a larger goal in itself, and would require the integration of spatial planning and infrastructure planning across sectors. Numerous Environment Sustainability Plans/Frameworks (ESP/(F)s) have shown that achieving environment sustainability would require the incorporation of the entire gamut of dimensions of sustainability, from resource availability and use, to energy efficiency, to proper disposal of waste, to conservation of natural resources. ¹⁵ In addition, climate resilience coupled with the sustainability agenda would also require an understanding of context-specific vulnerability and risks, and would require strategies and project designs based on these localized, contextualized understandings.

To achieve such goals, a radical overhaul of how cities are perceived, planned, run, and managed is needed. Promisingly, Smart Cities and similar agendas of the Government of India offer an opportunity to steer development down this path, and begin to ask critical questions about development practices and their future in India. Each city is unique in itself and so are its challenges. While international experiences suggest that ICTs may provide tools and technologies to address various issues faced by cities and manage environment sustainability, similar solutions would need to be contextualized in Indian cities, given that the city structure, form, culture, society, and other characteristics vary immensely from one place to another. Therefore, cities should be encouraged to explore, promote, and choose the right set of technologies based on their context and needs. Moreover, as cities selected under the Smart Cities mission would in principle be able to make use of different technologies in different parts of the city, it is important to ensure that all technologies used and systems developed in a city, when bundled together, promote environmental sustainability and overall smart growth. Further, while the Smart Cities mission and AMRUT provide an opportunity to plan and build infrastructure in an environmentally conscious manner, it is also important to ensure that adequate attention is given to raising service level benchmarks at the city level, and that efficient, well-coordinated systems are put in place to optimize resource use, particularly water and waste disposal.

The key link, however, between effective implementation and efficient use of all innovative technologies and smart systems installed in the cities is arguably ‘smart governance’. As defined by the Smart Governance Network ¹⁶ , smart governance is

…about the future of the public services, it’s about greater efficiency, community leadership, mobile working and continuous improvement through innovation. It is about using technology to facilitate and support better planning and decision making. It is about improving democratic processes and transforming the ways that public services are delivered.

Encapsulated in this idea is that enabling smart governance would require more informed decision making and increased public participation. It is likely that greater institutional integration would be required, along with the establishment of appropriate institutional mechanisms by the government at multiple levels. Furthermore, as municipalities remain the main unit of implementation and administration, it is important that increased attention is paid to building the capacity of local bureaucracies and city officials. Adequate exposure must be provided to municipal officials in terms of the technologies available, how to install, implement, and use the chosen strategies/technologies. Here, the smart city scheme and India’s other current urban development agendas have the opportunity to improve on the isolated manner urban development and environmental or disaster management departments in India operate. If successfully able to do so, they offer avenues for greater institutional integration to promote a climate resilience agenda in India’s cities.