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This article analyses the present urban development policies with a focus on the extent of equity in the delivery of basic services especially in the context of effectiveness of the programme of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM). The programme was designed as a reform-linked investment mission to ensure financially sustainable development of the cities through efficient governance, better infrastructure and improved service delivery. Further, the article analyses the infrastructural investment and geographical coverage of this programme and summarises the lessons learnt and attempts to delineate a policy perspective for inclusive urban development across the country.The big city bias of the mission is very evident from the analysis. Also, the developed states and big cities could take advantage of the mission and improve their infrastructural requirements of water supply, sewerage and transportation. The spending for the urban poor declined over the years and they became partners in this programme in a very cosmetic sense. The small towns and poorer states could take little advantage of this programme because of their limited capacity to understand and implement reforms and prepare city development plans and detailed project reports which were contingent for qualifying for funds.

Urbanization is considered as the key driver for land use and land cover (LULC) changes across the globe and Delhi is no exception to this phenomenon. The population of Delhi has almost doubled from 8.4 million in 1991 to 16.3 million in 2011. Correspondingly, the built-up area has also increased from 336.82 to 598.22 km 2 during 1999–2018. This urban expansion has led to emergence of serious ecological risk and fragmentation of the landscape. In this context, it is imperative to analyse the level of risks induced by such urban expansion and its underlying associations with other factors. This article quantifies the LULC changes in Delhi during 1999–2018 using Landsat 5 (TM) and Landsat 8 (OLI) data. A spatio-temporal sprawl induced risk assessment index has been developed by combining landscape fragmentation score and land use land cover vulnerability score. The landscape fragmentation score was based on four landscape metrics, whereas the vulnerability score was computed from LULC data. The article also assesses the association between risk areas and economic activities, environmental and infrastructural amenities that are considered key drivers of urban expansion in Delhi. To estimate spatio-temporal variability between risk areas and key drivers, ordinary least square regression and geographical weighted regression (GWR) were used. The GWR results reveal that sprawl-induced ecological risk in Delhi is strongly associated with economic activity, infrastructural accessibility and environmental amenities. This spatial empirical assessment also shows that urban growth incentives or services such as roads, metro rail, schools and hospitals can also create pressure on the landscape if local authorities arbitrarily provide these services across space without considering the associated risks.

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