Unfortunately India thought that urbanisation was a sin: Maharashtra CM Fadnavis

Indian Express

27-04-2025

Mahrashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday said since there had been a principle that 'India lives in villages', urbanisation was considered a sin in the country. Fadnavis was speaking at an event called Pune Urban Dialogue at Yashwantrao Chavan Academy Of Development Administration.
'If we see the history of the world, while countries or economies went from developing to developed, the route was only urbanisation. There is no developed economy that has been able to stop urbanisation. Unfortunately in our country we always thought that urbanisation is a sin, because we had a principle that India lives in villages. Which was true as well, India did stay in its villages. But we got stuck in the resolution that India will always live in its villages,' said Fadnavis.
Fadvanis said that as urbanisation that comes with development was considered a sin, India did not have any facility to manage this urbanisation. 'Today we see that the cities of our country have become squalid. The reason is that when this urbanisation was happening, people came towards cities for education, medical reasons, pursuing opportunities, jobs and entertainment. In such a situation we didn't think about creating housing, and slums are created, encroachments are created,' he said.
It was easiest to encroach around rivers and nallahs, said Fadnavis, adding that the creation of huge cities meant that garbage, drinking water, and liquid waste bacome a serious problem. 'And suddenly we realise that the city has become unmanageable and unsustainable. They have not remained liveable,' he said.
'Fifty per cent of Maharashtra's population lives in 500 cities and the other 50% lives in 40,000 villages. If we can change the face of even these 500 cities, we can provide a great life to half of our population. Therefore it is necessary to have this sort of a discussion,' he said.
'Maharashtra saw unprecedented urbanisation since the 1980s, but we realised that an urban challenge has appeared and urbanisation is inevitable in our country only at the end of the 1990s. Only two or three cities have been created as greenfields and the other cities have to be retrofitted instead of managing the urbanisation, which is the most difficult,' he said.
The Chief Minister also claimed that the government was taking this issue seriously now. As an example, he talked about an upcoming app in Mumbai, where a traveller will be shown a comprehensive route plan from the person's location to their destination, which would include local trains, BEST buses, metros, and water taxis. He said, the commuter will not have to travel more than 200-300 metres to reach any one of these transport forms.
Fadnavis said the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) was 'running very well' in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, and would be integrated with the Pune Metro.
Earlier this month, The Indian Express had highlighted how the bus service needed an additional 2,000-4,000 buses on top of the current fleet of 1,900 buses. However, officials could not give a timeline for a substantial increase in the fleet number, which is expected to remain around the 2,000 buses-mark in 2025.