Why urban planning continues to fail the people it is meant to protect
The Right to Life belongs to everyone—our Constitution says so clearly. Yet, its repeated violation forces us to ask some deeply uncomfortable questions.
Just days ago, a tragic incident in Greater Noida brought these questions sharply into focus. Yuvraj Mehta, a Noida-based software engineer, lost his life after his car plunged into a water-filled pit in Sector 150—an excavation left unattended for years. This was not an isolated accident. Official records show that between 2004 and 2015, nearly four million accident-related cases were reported across the country. While numbers convey scale, they barely capture the everyday vulnerability citizens face in Indian cities.
Incidents like the Old Rajinder Nagar basement flooding last year, recurring monsoon-related submergence of parking lots, or routine traffic fatalities remind us that urban danger in India has become normalised. It was against this backdrop that Padhaku Nitin, a public affairs podcast on Aajtak Radio, invited one of India’s most experienced urban thinkers to help decode the deeper causes of these failures.
Understanding Cities Through an Expert Lens
The guest for the episode is K.T. Ravindran, veteran urban designer and former Dean of the Urban Design Department at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. Ravindran has also served as Dean at the RICS School of Built Environment and as Chairman of the Delhi Urban Art Commission. With over four decades of experience across policy, planning, and academic institutions, he has witnessed Indian cities evolve—and unravel—up close.
The discussion moves beyond headline tragedies to a more fundamental question:
Why do Indian cities, despite master plans, regulations, and immense public investment, still fail at basic human safety?
The Real Issue: Land, Jurisdiction, and Accountability
One of Ravindran’s most critical clarifications is that urban accidents are often wrongly blamed on “bad roads” or “driver error.” In reality, the primary responsibility lies with land ownership and jurisdiction.
When a dangerous pit, abandoned basement, or incomplete construction site exists, the land-owning agency bears the first and greatest responsibility for citizen safety. Road designers, consultants, and contractors operate within limited mandates. Safety cannot be fragmented across departments—it must be owned.
The recurring problem, Ravindran explains, is that while multiple agencies work on the same urban space, no single authority ensures coordination. When tragedy strikes, responsibility dissolves into paperwork.
Roads Are Not Just for Speed
Indian cities have increasingly equated development with wider roads and faster traffic. Ravindran challenges this deeply entrenched mindset. A road is not merely a vehicle corridor—it is a shared civic space.
Roads are used by:
- Pedestrians
- Cyclists
- Children and senior citizens
- Street vendors
- Residents of villages and neighbourhoods split by highways
When speed becomes the sole design priority, roads stop connecting communities and begin dividing them. The consequences are visible: higher fatalities, social fragmentation, anxiety, pollution, and costly infrastructure upgrades that benefit only a minority of users.
Planning Without Urban Design
While Indian cities are rich in planning documents, they suffer from a severe absence of urban design thinking. Urban planning focuses on zoning, land use, and infrastructure networks. Urban design, on the other hand, focuses on human experience—walkability, shade, accessibility, safety, and dignity.
Despite the fact that only a small percentage of urban residents own private cars, planning decisions overwhelmingly prioritise them. Pedestrians and public transport users are treated as encroachments rather than primary stakeholders.
Governance Failure, Not Too Many Institutions
A common political explanation for urban chaos is “too many agencies.” Ravindran firmly disagrees. Large cities are complex systems and require multiple specialised institutions. The real issue is governance, not institutional excess.
Governance, he explains, is the ability of the state to ensure coordination, accountability, and public welfare across agencies. Smaller Indian cities often function better precisely because governance remains closer to people’s everyday lives. In large metros, that connection has broken down.
Climate Change and Urban Fragility
The conversation also places Indian cities within the context of the climate crisis. Coastal cities face inevitable submergence due to rising sea levels, while inland and riverine cities may confront acute water shortages.
Flooding in cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru is aggravated by construction over lakes, wetlands, and natural drainage systems. As Ravindran notes, water has memory—it always returns to its original path.
In the coming decades, India is likely to witness the rise of climate refugees, with large-scale migration from drought-prone and flooded regions into cities, further straining already fragile urban systems.
Old Cities: India’s Hidden Strength
Perhaps the most counterintuitive insight from the discussion is Ravindran’s defence of India’s old cities. Far from being obsolete, historic urban cores are among the most sustainable urban forms:
- Dense and walkable
- Mixed-use
- Built with local materials
- Low energy consumption
- Strong social and cultural networks
Aggressive road widening and cosmetic “beautification” often destroy these inherent strengths. Development, Ravindran argues, does not require demolition. Non-invasive upgrades, such as digital infrastructure and improved services, can modernise old cities without erasing their identity.
Rethinking Progress
Modernity is not defined by copying Western cities or maximising automobile use. Indian cities cannot compete globally by imitation alone. Their true strength lies in human-scale design, cultural continuity, and sustainable living patterns.
Until urban planning begins with life, safety, and dignity at its core, the constitutional promise of the Right to Life will remain compromised—not by law, but by the way our cities are built and governed.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of Padhaku Nitin to understand why our cities look modern yet function dangerously—and what it will take to change that.
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