Population growth and urbanisation are two of the world’s biggest challenges that will centre on cities in the future. In India, half the population will be living in cities by 2030. Providing the urban population with adequate living space and basic services, such as water, sewage and solid waste, is of main importance. The lack of integrated, strategically oriented and participatory planning approaches for sustainable urban development constitutes a core challenge in the context of rapid urbanisation. This includes, amongst others, leaving sectoral “silos” behind and working inter-departmentally.

The Indian Government is willing to promote sustainable urban development approaches and strengthen the role of states and municipalities in planning and implementing interventions in basic service provision and housing development. For this reason, the Government is establishing various public funding missions. While the initial funding strategies were mostly sector specific, the Smart Cities Program offers, for the first time, integrated approaches. It also strengthens the implementation role of the states and cities.

GOPA Infra is working on concepts for sustainable urban development concerning provision of urban basic services and housing in selected “smart cities”. Our team started work with an internal kick-off meeting in Delhi this week.

Project implementation will focus initially on the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Odisha, and the Smart Cities Kochi, Coimbatore and Bhubaneswar. The project supports approaches for sustainable urban development in the area of integrated planning, provision of pro-poor housing and basic services, with particular focus on water, wastewater and solid waste management.

We are looking forward to fruitful collaboration with all our partners over the next two years!