To Plan or Not to Plan?: The Conundrum for Sustainable Urbanisation in India

Abstract

Urban planning is essential for sustainable urbanisation. Its practice in India has often translated into legitimising exclusions, deepening inequality, and declining ecological resources. Based on our reading of the objectives stated in the spatial plans prepared over time for six Indian cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, and Kolkata—we find, responding to broad development ideas of the period, two broad themes around which the plans’ key contents are organised. These themes are: (i) anti-urban utopianism represented through the ideas of decongestion, decentralisation, and deindustrialisation, and social-democracy framework (labelled as socialist phase in India)and (ii) market-led planning. Both have created exclusions, creating a false dichotomy of state versus market in urban planning in India. Thus, the conundrum lies not merely in whether to plan or not, but also in how planning can foster sustainable and inclusive urban futures. © 2026, Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.