UPD 2025
UPD 2025
SESSION TITLE: ADDRESSING URBAN INDIA’S BREWING STRANDED ASSET CRISIS
26 November 2025 | 11.15 am – 12.30 pm
Moderator: Kavita Wankhade, Associate Dean – IIHS School of Systems & Infrastructure; Head – Governance and Services, IIHS
India is in the midst of an unprecedented urban buildout. Yet, there’s a growing risk of both policies and investment falling out of sync with how citizens will live, move, consume, and engage with cities in the future. While ongoing public programmes focus on big-ticket items like flyovers, landfills, long distance water pipelines, and large water and sewage treatment plants– emerging trends point in a different direction.
Mobility is shifting fast, with electric vehicles, metros, and shared ride services already making some roads and parking assets redundant before they are fully used. Traditional, centralised, and often inflexible water supply and drainage systems– designed for predictable rain and steady population growth, are increasingly struggling to cope with intense monsoons, flooding, and uneven urban expansion. Tens of gigawatts of new renewable projects sit stranded from a lack of adequate grid integration or regulatory alignment, while legacy coal and gas infrastructure face uncertain futures.
India’s unprecedented infrastructure expansion risks being anchored in the past rather than oriented to the future– creating assets that may soon become redundant or may fall short of meeting expected service levels. Persistent lags in planning and investment choices could also divert vital resources from affordable housing, water security, and climate resilience– areas that will define the inclusiveness, adaptability, and overall liveability of Indian cities in the years ahead.
In this backdrop, the session will focus on the following questions:
- How can city leaders spot early warning signs of misaligned priorities and spending– and act before costs escalate?
- What governance and regulatory reforms will ensure that our cities are genuinely future-ready, with policies and investments that evolve alongside new priorities and business models?
- How do urban agencies build the capacity to repurpose or divest from legacy assets as needs shift?
- What financial tools– adaptive PPPs, modular bonds, or flexible incentives– can make India’s infrastructure more responsive and resilient?
- What lessons can we learn from other Indian or global examples to ensure that India’s urban investments build for the future, rather than get locked in the past?
SESSION TITLE: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND URBAN TRANSFORMATION
26 November 2025 | 1.45 pm – 3.00 pm
Moderator: Geetha Krishnan, Chief – Academic Outreach and Career Development; Head – Digital Blended Learning, IIHS
India’s cities are evolving at an extraordinary pace- economically, socially, and spatially. This transformation is being shaped not only by policy interventions or large corporate investments, but also by the ingenuity and drive of the nation’s entrepreneurs. Across sectors such as education, energy, health, housing, mobility, and waste management, entrepreneurial ventures are redefining how cities function and how citizens live, work, and thrive.
From electric mobility start-ups challenging auto majors to climate-tech firms helping cities monitor and mitigate heat and flooding, and from local makerspaces creating new livelihoods to social enterprises transforming access to education – entrepreneurship is emerging as a critical engine for sustainable and inclusive urban change.
However, Indians cities continue to present major structural barriers for entrepreneurs: fragmented governance, opaque procurement systems, weak incubation networks, and limited access to urban-focused venture capital. Many promising innovations fail to scale not because demand is lacking, but because city systems are not yet designed to collaborate meaningfully with entrepreneurial ventures.
As the pace and complexity of urbanisation accelerates, the question is no longer whether entrepreneurship can shape urban transformation but how cities, investors, institutions, and citizens can consciously stitch win-win partnerships.
In this backdrop, the session will focus on the following questions:
- How can entrepreneurship be embedded into India’s urban development strategy, and not be treated just as an outcome of it?
- How can cities act as living laboratories for innovation– reducing friction and enabling pilots, sandboxes, and start-up ecosystems?
- What policy and financial instruments– from process reforms to urban innovation funds– can support entrepreneurs to address public challenges at scale?
- How can governments, corporates, investors, incubators, and academia collaborate to strengthen the ecosystem for urban entrepreneurship?
- What lessons can be drawn from entrepreneurs who have transformed the quality and sustainability of urban life?
SESSION: ELECTRICITY AND THE ENERGY TRANSITION
27 November 2025 | 11.15 am – 12.45 pm
Moderator: Amir Bazaz, Associate Dean – IIHS School of Environment & Sustainability; IIHS School of Systems & Infrastructure | Head – Infrastructure and Climate, IIHS
Over the past fifteen years, India’s electricity sector has transformed in scale, complexity, and ambition. The rapid rise of renewables has reshaped the national energy mix, altering generation and investment patterns and redefining India’s energy security and climate responsibility ambitions. Institutional frameworks and public programmes have evolved in line with decarbonisation goals– and policy reforms and global shifts are pushing the sector towards cleaner, more diversified, and technology-driven pathways.
Yet, beneath these headline transitions lie persistent challenges and new uncertainties. While generation capacity and grid integration have expanded, distribution companies remain under financial strain, and State electricity boards continue to report inefficiencies. Tariff reform, intended to balance both affordability and financial viability, has led to complex trade-offs between cost recovery and inclusion. Urban areas are emerging as hubs of innovation and demand, even as rural systems still rely heavily on cross-subsidies and ageing infrastructure. Meanwhile, the social and developmental consequences of the transition– affordability, reliability, and access– remain uneven and poorly understood.
Layered on these domestic realities are global volatilities in fuel and technology markets, accelerating climate impacts, and evolving consumption patterns– all of which are blurring the boundaries between risk and opportunity.
India’s energy future hinges not only on how power is produced, but also on how effectively economic, environmental, and social objectives can be aligned to deliver a resilient, inclusive, and truly sustainable transition.
The proposed session will reflect on the following questions:
- How is the energy transition unfolding across various scales– household, urban and regional– and what does this reveal about its depth, pace, and inclusiveness?
- As the country advances towards net-zero goals, what should the long term outcomes for the electricity sector be– and how can India balance climate mitigation imperatives with broader goals of social inclusion and adaptation?
- What are the possible pathways towards desired outcomes, and what are the opportunities and risks associated with each of these?
- As environmental disturbances grow in frequency and intensity, how can the electricity sector be made more resilient, especially in protecting interconnected regional and urban infrastructures?
SESSION: INDUSTRY 5.0 – THE URBAN SUSTAINABILITY OPPORTUNITY
27 November 2025 | 1:45 pm – 3:00 pm
Moderator: K V Santhosh Ragavan, Head – Environmental Services, IIHS
From mechanisation and electrification to automation and digitalisation, the evolution of Industry 1.0 to 4.0 has profoundly reshaped production, economic growth, and city life. Industry 5.0 marks a new phase– one centred on human-machine collaboration, resilience, and sustainability.
The opportunities are significant. Industry 5.0 opens pathways for industries to move beyond factory gates and act as ‘regional stewards’ within the urban fabric- building circular economies, reducing resource intensity, and engaging directly with the environmental and social priorities of the cities they inhabit. The potential alignment between industrial transformation and urban planning promises powerful synergies that could drive cleaner production, advance worker welfare, and improve the overall quality of urban life.
However, the shift will not be easy. The transition faces familiar pressures– high capital costs, uneven regulatory capacity, skill and resource constraints for MSMEs, organisational inertia, and limited cross-sector coordination. Importantly, many industries still view sustainability as peripheral to competitiveness, rather than central to long-term resilience.
Industry 5.0 presents an opportunity to better align how production, cities, and environmental priorities intersect. Realising this potential could take many forms: modular and adaptive technologies, new kinds of partnerships that connect government, industry, research, and stronger support systems that help smaller enterprises embed sustainability into everyday operations. How these elements come together will likely shape the next phase of both industrial growth and urban life and resilience.
The proposed session will reflect on the following questions:
- How does Industry 5.0 reshape the relationship between technology, people, and sustainability compared to earlier industrial transitions?
- What are the main challenges– economic, organisational, and regulatory– that could slow the alignment between industrial transformation and urban sustainability?
- How might collaboration between industries, governments, and knowledge institutions help cities and enterprises adopt more adaptive and inclusive Industry 5.0 models?
- What approaches can help smaller enterprises and local ecosystems participate meaningfully in this transition while advancing broader climate and social goals?
SESSION: ENABLING LAND GOVERNANCE: FROM INNOVATION TO ACTION
27 November 2025 | 3:00 pm – 4:15 pm
Moderator: Deepika Jha, Lead – IIHS Practice
Land governance remains foundational to sustainable urban development. Reliable and transparent land administration systems influence everything from infrastructure delivery and housing markets to Municipal finance, citizen services, and economic growth.
In recent years, there has been renewed policy momentum both at the national and State levels to revitalise land information systems. The initiatives range from conducting large scale land surveys, encouraging use of modern geospatial technologies– all in the service of improving land records.
In addition, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning also present a moment of unprecedented opportunity.
Yet, challenges are many and predictable – institutional fragmentation, uneven technical capacities, data privacy, and interoperability concerns.
In this backdrop, the session will reflect on the following questions:
- What have been the enablers and barriers to advancing innovations and reforms in land administration?
- What is the role of emerging technologies to transform land administration, particularly for managing high-volume, real-time property data?
- How can policies, capacities, and institutions be aligned across different levels of the public and private sector to achieve systemic improvements in land governance?
High Performance Buildings in India: Status Paper
India is entering one of the largest construction waves in its history. By 2030, 600 million Indians will live in urban areas, expanding the real estate market to USD 1 trillion — a figure projected to grow sixfold by 2050. Crucially, nearly three-quarters of the buildings that will exist in 2050 are yet to be built. This status paper examines how the next generation of urban stock will shape the country’s economic trajectory, influence climate and resource footprints, and determine the long-term sustainability of Indian cities. It underscores the decisive role of high-performance buildings in guiding this transformation.
Material-Intensive and Globally Entangled Nature of India’s Development Ambitions
India’s post-1991 transformation has powered rapid economic growth, large-scale infrastructure expansion, and accelerating urbanisation — yet stark regional inequalities and rising climate vulnerabilities persist. This brief explores how sustained development depends on inclusive growth and resilient employment generation, supported by reliable, affordable, and secure access to materials. As domestic demand intensifies and pressures from import dependence and resource constraints grow, India faces critical strategic choices. The analysis highlights the need for adaptive, coordinated approaches to balance growth, environmental security, and equity in India’s pursuit of developed country status and long-term prosperity.
The Promise of Urban Land Record Reform: Existing State Models
Urban land record systems in India remain outdated, fragmented, and inadequate for citizens and fast-growing cities, even as rural records have undergone significant modernisation. Against this backdrop, this issue brief examines the urgency and opportunity for systemic reform in urban land and property information systems. Building on earlier work, it reviews the national shift signalled by the NAKSHA pilot (2024–25) and analyses established state-level models in Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. These examples illustrate diverse, practical approaches to improving accessibility and updating urban land records. The brief concludes that reliable, citizen-centric, and frequently updated land records are essential for secure tenure, efficient governance, sound municipal finances, and transparent markets.
The Urban in India’s Recent State Budgets
This brief contains design pathways that will deliver on a shared digital future which aims to incorporate community and shared access as a key facet of technology creation. It responds specifically to the question: Is digital public infrastructure ready to be responsive to the needs of low-resource women users to better women’s earnings and livelihoods? What can the role of women’s associations and worker collectives be in the ecosystems built around digital public infrastructure in livelihoods and skilling?
Plugging the Leaks, Powering the Future: Unlocking Water-Energy Savings for Indian Utilities
Electricity consumption by India’s water and wastewater utilities has risen sharply over the past decade due to increasing demand, ageing systems, and operational inefficiencies. This report demonstrates that behind this surge lies a significant opportunity: by improving operations, upgrading equipment, and reducing losses, utilities can curb escalating energy use and achieve substantial financial savings. Using national datasets, state-level patterns, and examples from leading cities, the analysis shows how rightsizing demand, modernising pumps, and cutting water losses could reverse the rising trajectory of electricity consumption and save up to Rs 5,500 crore annually. With targeted reforms, Indian utilities can stabilise energy use, strengthen financial resilience, and build more efficient and sustainable service delivery systems.
Preventive Maintenance of Underground Sewerage Systems – Observation Note
The CWIS initiative assisted Tiruchirappalli City Corporation (TCC) in assessing frequent blockages in its extensive Underground Sewerage System (UGSS). Field studies and interviews with TCC engineers revealed that despite active redressal systems, the UGSS network had issues due to poor design and construction of diaphragm chambers, improper solid waste disposal, and unauthorised connections to stormwater drains. The report recommends preventive maintenance including regular monitoring and scaling up TCC’s good practices, structural retrofitting, and awareness measures to strengthen UGSS efficiency and performance, which can also be implemented in other urban local bodies in the state.