Urban India is estimated to account for over 63 per cent of the GDP and could rise to as much as 75 per cent of the GDP in the next decade.

A WHO study of 124 Indian cities is revealing—only eight cities had liveable air quality, 50 cities have alarming PM10 (particulate matter) levels of over 100, and 11 cities have levels of over 200 that could be lethal. Fact is, 660 million people live in areas where annual mean concentrations of harmful PM2.5 exceed national guidelines. Unsurprisingly, in 2014, 34.6 million persons—nearly the population of Canada—reported acute respiratory infection. A study led by Johannes Lelieveld, Director at the Max Planck Institute, reveals that 650,000 people die of air pollution in India—and that it will only worsen with rising population if the business-as-usual scenario continues.

This week, the attention has been on the quality of air— thanks to interventions in the Supreme Court. The situation is no different or less dire in drinking water. There is no city in the country which can assure round-the-clock provision of drinking water. And whatever water is supplied, supports a booming market for multi-risk-mitigating filters. It is not even winter and summer is six months away, and cities of Mumbai and Pune are already suffering 20 per cent cut in water supply. Politically affiliated tanker mafias are an essential feature of urban landscape as are private water marts.

Almost every public service that is taken for granted in a paved economy is either unavailable, unreliable or in a state of disrepair. And mobility is the biggest casualty. Average commute time across cities is between 60 and 90 minutes (multiply that by working days to assess productive hours wasted). Every monsoon, residents of India’s BPO capital Gurgaon, software capital Bengaluru, commercial capital Mumbai, national capital Delhi and boomtown Chennai brace themselves for floods. Believe it or not, only eight cities in India treat over 50 per cent of the sewage—the rest let untreated muck into lakes, rivers and sea. Earlier this year, the government informed that nearly 70 per cent of the sewage treatment plants do not function. Over half the sewage that’s discharged into the Ganga flows from six cities—Kolkata, Kanpur, Varanasi, Moradabad, Allahabad and Patna.

Data from the UN on demographic change suggests that India would have added 497 million to its urban population by 2050. World Bank studies estimate that total urban area could expand from 2.36 lakh sq km in 2010 to 5.4 lakh sq km in the best case scenario. More importantly, the expansion will call for investments of $595 billion in infrastructure—for roads, water and sanitation.