ACCCRN India: Synthesis Report – Volume I
37
TARU used a model for estimating the distance from which water need to be transported to meet the water
city water demands of projected population Year 2030. This model assumed 30 of average rainfall as runoff
coeficient and 5 of the renewable water resources allocated for domestic consumption from nearest
available sources. The demand was calculated with 135 lpcd for 2030 city population. The largest 56 cities of
2030’s will have a population of 233 million and would require about 11.496 billion cum of water annually to
meet domestic needs. The distances between sources and cities are shown in the following Figure 3.8.
Figure 3.8: Distance from sources
Source: TARU, 2012
Most of these cities have to depend on resources which are already being used by other users and conlicts are
bound to result due to growing demands, especially in the semi-arid and arid areas. Also, long distance water
conveyance would increase dependency on energy, which is likely to become a bottleneck in already energy
and water hungry India. Energy and material needs of these cities will also need allocation additional water
resources for thermal or nuclear power stations.
“Governments should realise the potential of urbanisation to reduce material consumption and environmental impact
through eiciency measures. he well planned provision of water supply, waste disposal, power and other services will
avoid slum conditions and increase the welfare of inhabitants.” - Recommendation 5, People and the planet Royal Society,
2012
Cities provide opportunities for more eficient water and energy use due to economy of scale as well as
concentrated demand. Possibilities of waste reduction, eficiency improvement, recycling and reuse exists in
both water and energy sectors. Investments and long term planning would be necessary to improve overall
use eficiency supported by improved governance and use of Information technology for city level
management of these scarce resources as well as participation of citizens in water conservation. Also,
a mix of decentralized and city level options need to be explored so that local solutions for water supply,
sewage treatment and recycling can happen at colony neighborhood levels also. This would necessitate
strengthening of settlement level organizations like Resident Welfare Associations and ward committees.
3.3 INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES
The cities of India are already facing stress on existing infrastructure as well as lifeline services due
to historical lag in investments amidst of growing population. The JNNURM investments were only able
to reduce the stress to some extent. Growing pace of urbanisation, redundant land use planning and
development control regulations and other policies have only exacerbated the stress as evident by
continued expansion of urban sprawls due to low FSI rules LRHD paradigm resulting in higher capital costs
of infrastructure to serve the expanding cities.
Even though most of the cores of Indian cities were compact and over-crowded, they hardly had suficient
conventional infrastructure and lifeline services. Donut shaped concentric urban sprawl developed
due to growing urban population, without pre-built infrastructure, often limited by basic natural resource
scarcity. Now a change towards the compact city with suficient infrastructure would require radical change
in land use on already built up spaces, high investments to meet concentrated demand on water, energy and
transport.
The infrastructure building as well as expansion of services network could not keep pace with the
urbanisation as well as increase in per capita resource use due to changing aspirations of the residents. This
ACCCRN India: Synthesis Report – Volume I
38
has led to reduction in per capita availability as well as access to services over last several decades. The cities
have neither inancial resources nor capacity to expand the infrastructure and lifeline services, nor were
they able to leverage investments due to the limited autonomy.
The following challenges have to be addressed to retroit the cities to make them provide lifeline
infrastructure to all. Bringing together different stakeholders for
paradigm shift in Urban planning towards sustainability and
resilience building including — Integrating land use and service networks
— Matching demand and supply of resources water, land, energy etc. under evolving
urbanisation and climate change environments
Uniied management of resources, infrastructure and services at city level
Inclusive growth and universal access along with cost recovery at city level
Devolving roles to neighbourhoods communities as well as partnership models, wherever viable.
Shift towards more intensive use of public services, especially in transportation to reduce
need for augmentation of infrastructure Leveraging investments for infrastructure building,
under stressed and subsidised cost recovery environments
Integrating eficiency improvement including usage eficiency improvement, loss reduction, reuse etc.
along with augmenting sources of water and energy Decongestion and allocation of Space for common
infrastructure especially the road network and in core city areas under very high land price situation.
3.4 GOVERNANCE ISSUES