MUMBAI: India’s urban population is expected to skyrocket in the coming decades, but its cities are already struggling to keep up, and climate change will make life even more difficult.
The population of Mumbai, one of India’s largest cities, has increased by over eight million during the past 30 years, or roughly the same as the entire city of New York, and is expected to rise by another seven million by the year 2035.
With almost 40% of the population living in slums, Mumbai’s housing, transportation, water, and waste management infrastructure has not kept up with neighbouring Indian megacities.
 These dense clusters of run-down structures, which are located next to some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in India, frequently lack regular power, water, or appropriate sanitation.
India’s anticipated urban development is putting pressure on cities.
It is a condition that is present all throughout the world as the global population approaches eight billion, with the majority living in developing nations.
Many commuters from Mumbai’s outskirts hang out in open spaces on crowded trains for hours, and others travel by car or motorcycle on congested, pothole-filled roads that flood during the monsoon season.
Mohammed Sartaj Khan, who is from a small town in Uttar Pradesh, moved to the largest slum, Dharavi, of “Slumdog Millionaire” renown, as a youngster and now works in a tannery, where a million people reside.
“In the village, I had a fantastic upbringing. Unlike the crowds here, it has a calm atmosphere “In the maze of lanes in Dharavi, Khan, now 35, spoke to AFP.
He said, “When I got here, I observed people running around like ants.” “The manner that ants continue to move in their lanes in the presence of people Nobody is concerned with others.”
However, he continued, “people don’t have money” in his village.
He used to make 6,000 rupees ($70) a month in Mumbai, but now he runs a machine and earns four times that amount. He transfers the majority of this money to his wife and kids, whom he rarely has the means to visit.
Untimely deaths
According to UN estimates, India’s population will increase from its current 1.4 billion people to surpass China’s and reach a peak of 1.7 billion in the 2060s before declining to 1.5 billion at the beginning of the next century.
According to the International Energy Agency, 270 million additional people would reside in Indian cities by 2040, increasing carbon emissions from power generation, transportation, and the construction of steel and concrete to house them.
In India’s megacities, crowded living conditions, poor infrastructure, and severe air, water, and noise pollution are commonplace.
According to a government assessment from last year, over 70% of the daily billions of litres of sewage produced in urban centres remains untreated.
Every winter, the 20 million-person metropolis of New Delhi is engulfed in deadly air pollution that, according to a Lancet research, resulted in about 17,500 preventable deaths in 2019.
Floods and droughts
Cities in India are home to millions of people who depend on truck or railway delivery for their daily supply of running water.
As groundwater levels fall, people in Delhi and other places are digging deeper and deeper wells.
In the summer of 2019, Chennai, in southeast India, ran out of water. This catastrophe was attributed to both low rains and urban development over historic wetlands.
Urban flooding is also happening more frequently.
The worst traffic congestion in India is found in Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore. In September, flooding was attributed to unauthorised development.
As the planet’s temperature warms and the weather becomes more unpredictable, it is predicted that natural disasters would bring India’s cities ever greater agony.
Scientists think that the annual monsoon rainy season, which increases both flooding and droughts, is growing more irregular and intense.
Indian summers are becoming more and more sweltering due to rising temperatures, especially in metropolitan areas where the heat is trapped by concrete. India saw its warmest March on record this year.
And even though Covid-19 did not have the negative effects on India’s slums as some had anticipated, their congestion makes them vulnerable to future outbreaks.
More rural economic investment, according to Poonam Muttreja of the Population Foundation of India, could reduce urban migration, whereas new financial incentives
Whether it be weather changes, flooding, jobs, or a lack of infrastructure, poor people, particularly migrants in cities, are most at risk from climate change, Muttreja told AFP.
“India has to change its perspective. And we need to stop whining and start acting instead.”
