India’s dream of creating sustainable and smart cities requires partners and governance with inspiration from the Singapore story

The populous nation of India continues its journey of urbanisation as its leaders work to meet the basic needs of its residents such as housing, mobility and jobs.

According to the World Bank, in 2015, India has 1.311 billion people in 35 states or union territories over 2,973,190.0 square kilometres of land area.

With urbanisation, a growing economy and trade, cities such as Mumbai and Delhi are attracting the rural population in search for work and a better life….

In June 2016, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 14 smart city projects in Pune, thereby starting execution works of 20 smart cities. Under the national Smart City Missions, it aims to cover 100 cities over five years from 2015.

“Why do cities happen? They happen because you get livelihood, which is why cities were traditionally built on water-trade routes such as coasts and rivers. When you create a new city with livelihood, you end up with a great city,”

said Shailesh Pathak, Executive Director of Bhartiya Group, India.

He was speaking at the Singapore-India Business Dialogue 2016 with the theme ‘Sustainable Urban Management in Singapore and India’ on November 15, 2016. The panel session was organised by the International Office of the Singapore Management University.

“It is easy to say, ‘Let’s create 100 new cities’ but what are people going there for? The more logical way is to create corridors like the industrial corridor in Mumbai, which has seven large nodes and livelihood will be created because of logistics and industries. That is the way to create new cities,” he said.
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