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Efficient public participation results in the effective implementation of plans, policies, and programs since the proposals are best-reviewed, suggested and accepted by the public. However, in a heterogeneous society like India, where there are a wide array of individuals, communities, and social groups creating enabling methods for public participation is still difficult for city-level development authorities. The paper aims to ascertain the current state of public participation while formulating Urban Development Plans, focusing across three Indian cities. It argues that the current practices of involving the public are limited to stakeholder consultation primarily comprising of expert groups where no robust methods exist to capture the say of the common public during the formulation of the development plan for the city. The analysis reveals that the inclusion of citizens and the implementation of a suitable participatory method amongst the three selected case studies still pose a question since the primary approach is inviting the influential stakeholders for suggestions. The research paper also brings in arguments from literature for how public participation aids the development process. An exploration of few approaches for public participation is also discussed along with considering the challenges of implementation in the Indian context.

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One of the major challenges faced by the local level agencies is the identification and applicability of assessment metrics and standards for urban water resilience, especially in India, as most of the considerable research on the resilience assessment refers to the developed western world context. These metrics have limited applicability in Indian context owing to limited data availability and varied significance of various indicators. It is of vital importance to assess the inherent urban water resilience, so as to channelize the limited resources in prioritized sectors, based on the assessment of water services for cities. This paper attempts to develop an urban water resilience assessment matrix, typically highlighting the integration of technology based on the applicability in Indian context. This matrix is based on a mix of household level indicators as well as utility level indicators. This novel matrix, for the cities of developing countries, attempt to capture the heterogeneity prevailing in the urban water sector based on the supply modes for city households.