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Rapid sprawl is stretching India’s water systems to breaking point, making equitable access dependent on smarter, inward-focused, ecologically sensitive urban development
A recent study by the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) and the World Bank has warned that uncontrolled urban sprawl, or unchecked outward expansion of cities, could deny access to clean water to 220 million people in the Global South by 2050. Combining 183 million building footprints, over 125,000 household surveys, and various infrastructure indicators in 100-plus cities across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the study cautions that low-density urban sprawl increases costs and reduces the feasibility of providing piped water. Evaluating three alternative scenarios, including compact, persistent, and horizontal spread, it concludes that sparser cities have 40 percent lower proximity to critical infrastructure and 50 percent lower access to piped water, and face 75 percent higher water tariffs than denser urban habitats with compact growth.
These findings are significant for India, where rapidly expanding cities are already experiencing acute water stress and widening demand-supply gaps despite large-scale investments. For example, Praja Foundation’s annual assessment of Mumbai’s water supply highlighted a 15 percent daily shortfall, as it received ~3,975 million litres daily (MLD) against its total demand of 4,664 MLD. Only one of the city’s 24 municipal wards had a 24/7 water supply, while the remaining 23 received an average of 5.37 hours of daily supply.
India’s megacities exhibit a dual characteristic: denser, vertically growing cores coexist with rapid, haphazard growth along the periphery, exacerbating service deficits. This duality, i.e. hyper-densification of the urban core and dispersed peripheral sprawl, creates a weak service template.
However, unlike the risks of low-density outward expansion highlighted by the study, India’s megacities exhibit a dual characteristic: denser, vertically growing cores coexist with rapid, haphazard growth along the periphery, exacerbating service deficits. This duality, i.e. hyper-densification of the urban core and dispersed peripheral sprawl, creates a weak service template despite the seemingly high overall densities. Recent experiences, including Chennai’s 2019 water crisis, the rampant erosion of Bengaluru’s interconnected lake system—a precious link in the city’s traditional water-harvesting practices, the shrinking mangrove ecosystems in Mumbai, and increasing groundwater pollution in Delhi, have reinforced this phenomenon.
This pattern indicates a mismatch in which, despite ageing infrastructure and growing stress, dense cores remain comparatively well served, while utilities struggle to serve the expanding outskirts. Systemic inefficiencies and high levels of unaccounted-for water (UFW) further widen the demand-supply gap, forcing residents in informal settlements to rely on private tankers or other informal sources to meet their daily needs.
Delhi’s expanding urban form illustrates this scenario. Unable to receive adequate water supply from the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), newer areas in the National Capital Region have resorted to overextraction of groundwater, leading to increased contamination. A recent report by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) found that up to 15.66 percent of groundwater samples collected from 80-plus sites across Delhi were contaminated with uranium deposits exceeding the permissible limit of 30 parts per billion (ppb), thereby exacerbating health risks, especially in informal, unauthorised colonies. Across urban India, cities such as Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Ranchi exhibit this common trend. Urban peripheries and peri-urban settlements depend extensively on groundwater, accessed through borewells and informal tanker markets, due to limited coverage or unreliability of formal piped networks. In the absence of effective monitoring or enforceable extraction limits, many of these regions experience acute groundwater depletion.
Another recent CGWB assessment ranked Bengaluru Urban district among the top districts in Karnataka, with groundwater extraction at 186.7 percent of sustainable recharge, indicating severe overexploitation. Similarly, Chennai’s encroachment on wetlands, marshes and recharge catchments compounded the city’s 2019 ‘Day Zero’ crisis, when all four of the city’s civic reservoirs dried up. Local studies have highlighted that natural wetlands in metropolitan Chennai have decreased from 12.6 sq km in 1893 to about 3 sq km in 2017, predicting contamination of 60 percent of its groundwater by 2030, exponentially increasing the city’s vulnerability to droughts, even in years of normal rainfall.
Urban peripheries and peri-urban settlements depend extensively on groundwater, accessed through borewells and informal tanker markets, due to limited coverage or unreliability of formal piped networks. In the absence of effective monitoring or enforceable extraction limits, many of these regions experience acute groundwater depletion.
Likewise, rising water demand has reportedly overwhelmed the local utilities in the expanding suburbs of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, prompting extraordinary measures, including a temporary freeze on new water connections. The situation is similar in Hyderabad as well, where peripheral urban growth has increased pressure on surface water, leading to overreliance on groundwater and weak distribution networks.
India’s urban dilemma, therefore, carries the dual burden of sprawl and asymmetric expansion, leading to dense cores alongside unplanned growth at the fringes. The expansion of the urban footprint typically entails incremental and informal layouts that outpace the provision of water, sewerage, drainage, and public transport infrastructure. The result is a fragmented landscape of mainly informal settlements and peri-urban villages that rely primarily on groundwater, private tankers, and inadequate on-site sanitation, thereby exposing the residents to increased environmental and public health risks. Any policy response must address both sides of this divide, with due consideration of the unique needs of the people who inhabit the urban periphery and how they are differently affected by poor access to water and sanitation.
The result is a fragmented landscape of mainly informal settlements and peri-urban villages that rely primarily on groundwater, private tankers, and inadequate on-site sanitation, thereby exposing the residents to increased environmental and public health risks.
India must integrate water and sanitation in the initial stages of land-use and master planning. Building approvals must integrate realistic assessments of both the capital and lifecycle operating costs of water and sewerage networks, and mandate network connectivity and at-source treatment and reuse.
Second, states must prioritise inward urban development over outward greenfield expansion. Redeveloping large tracts of under-utilised land within older municipal areas, including industrial zones, low-rise commercial districts, and dilapidated residential blocks through incentives can support inward urban growth without the heavy capital burden of new water infrastructure. For example, densifying existing neighbourhoods while simultaneously restoring and integrating remaining lakes and wetlands in Bengaluru could reduce rampant groundwater extraction that currently exceeds recharge rates.
Third, urban planners must treat ecological assets as integral components of urban water infrastructure. Chennai’s wetlands, Bengaluru’s lakes, and Mumbai’s wetlands and mangroves are critical to groundwater recharge, flood mitigation, and local water availability. Protecting and restoring these systems reduces both costs and the vulnerabilities of the piped supply.
Redeveloping large tracts of under-utilised land within older municipal areas, including industrial zones, low-rise commercial districts, and dilapidated residential blocks through incentives can support inward urban growth without the heavy capital burden of new water infrastructure.
Fourth, decentralised systems must complement central infrastructure. Community-scale sewage treatment, rainwater harvesting, and local reuse can significantly reduce the burden on central supply networks, particularly in high-density clusters. Decentralised neighbourhood-level rainwater-harvesting interventions have helped stabilise groundwater levels and recharge lakes in several cities across India.
Fifth, governance and equity must remain a top priority. The poorest households already pay disproportionately more for less water. In Mumbai, slum households receive only 45 lpcd through formal supply, compared with 135 lpcd in non-slum areas, and pay far more to tanker suppliers than for municipal metered piped supply. Cities must ensure adequate supply, transparent metering, systemic leak mitigation, and tariff reforms before allowing spatial growth at the fringes.
The choices India makes now will define its urban future. If megacities continue to expand outward with little regard for infrastructure economics, millions will remain dependent on tankers, borewells, and informal suppliers. But if cities choose compact, well-planned, ecologically sensitive growth, universal access to clean water becomes far more achievable, despite climate stress and growing populations. The CSH-World Bank study offers both a warning and a pathway. Balancing urban growth with hydrological realities can prevent a future in which clean water becomes a privilege of the few rather than an essential commodity for all. Rethinking urban sprawl can enable India to create a model for cities of the Global South to grow while securing the most fundamental human needs.
Dhaval Desai is a Senior Fellow and Vice President at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Dhaval is a Vice President - Platforms and Communities at Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. His spectrum of work covers diverse topics ranging from urban renewal ...
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