By Srikanth Viswanathan and Surjyatapa Ray
India’s urban roads have deteriorated rapidly over the last two decades. Despite being critical infrastructure, potholes, broken footpaths, unsafe crossings, and frequent waterlogging — as witnessed in Gurugram, Bengaluru, and Mumbai — are often the norm.
Urban roads represent far more than mobility infrastructure; they could be a potentially systemic solution for public safety, women’s participation in the workforce, public transport, clean air, walkability, public health, and flooding.
However, realising this potential requires fundamentally reimagining how we build urban roads. We must pivot from a car-centric approach aimed at easing the flow of vehicular traffic to citizen-centric design. This would also require the kind of systematic, mission-driven approach that has transformed India’s highways and rural roads.
Today, India’s highway network stretches to 1.46 lakh km — nearly tripling from 50,000 km in the late 1990s. The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), launched in 2000, has connected 1.78 lakh settlements through more than 7 lakh km of new rural roads. This success stems from the coming together of vision and leadership, dedicated funds from the union government, and specialist institutions — elements typical of national missions.
National missions could be a pathway for similar transformation in urban roads as well, as they deliver unified standards, coordinated funding, and institutional frameworks. States can adapt these to local contexts, mandate reforms, allocate funding, and strengthen the capacity of city governments in the design, implementation, and maintenance of urban roads.
First, India lacks mandatory standards for road design, execution and maintenance — for example, there are no legally mandated guidelines on the width of footpaths, placement of signage, construction materials used, etc. Without these, the quality of urban roads depends on individual municipal engineers and contractors. Citizens experience the consequences of undefined standards every day as they navigate life on city roads: Disorganised underground utilities beneath roads rather than under footpaths, substandard materials, non-uniform travel lanes, unsafe pedestrian crossings, unscientific stormwater drains, and haphazard parking and street vending.
Second, the current practice does not mandate design drawings for roads. Urban roads today can be constructed without detailed design drawings, including Good for Construction (GFC) drawings that specify every aspect of on-site execution. Such drawings are not required as part of tenders either. Municipalities are also under no obligation to employ urban designers. It is unimaginable to construct a building without detailed architectural drawings, yet this is exactly how most of our urban roads are built.
Third, procurement laws and policies undermine quality. The prevalent least-cost (L1) tendering system prioritises price over performance. Contracts are typically issued for short stretches of road, attracting small-scale contractors with limited skills. Further, poor coordination between civic agencies results in roads being dug up repeatedly.
Fourth, there is no information system for urban roads. No mechanism tracks and manages the lifecycle — from design and contracting to execution and maintenance, including mapping of underground utilities. The result is poor coordination and accountability.
Bengaluru’s Tender SURE (Specifications for Urban Roads Execution) offers a compelling model for urban road design: Uniform travel lanes, continuous and even footpaths, tactile pavers and ramps for improved accessibility, organised underground utilities, and pipe-and-chamber stormwater drains. In addition to detailed design drawings for roads, Tender SURE also recommends interagency coordination through its integrated tender model.
Tender SURE has already been implemented across more than 500 km in 34 cities and 7 states, including 174 km in Bengaluru and 285 km in 17 cities under Uttar Pradesh’s CM GRIDS programme, with an allocation of Rs 3,000 crores. A study of Tender SURE roads in Bengaluru revealed promising results: 228 per cent more pedestrians, 117 per cent more women, a 55 per cent rise in land value, and improved safety, driveability, and maintenance.
The learning from models such as Tender SURE and Complete Streets by ITDP show that there are six specific measures critical to transforming urban roads.
First, municipalities must recognise the urban design gap, introduce positions for urban designers, and empower them to enforce road design standards.
Second, road design standards — such as Tender SURE, IRC 86 and 103, or Complete Streets — must be legally mandated as the default for road building.
Third, model tender documents must include design specifications, bills of quantities, material standards, and digital GFC drawings. These should be adapted to different categories of cities and typologies of roads, while remaining flexible and responsive to local contexts.
Fourth, states must adopt a quality and cost-based system of tendering. The L1 system is irreparably damaging the quality of urban roads.
Fifth, cities should emulate the Gati Shakti model of mapping subterranean utilities and ensuring inter-agency coordination. They should also explore the relevance and feasibility of Digital Public Goods for urban roads.
Lastly, India must undertake large-scale, certification-based skilling programmes for municipal engineers and contractors on road design, execution, and maintenance, even as municipalities start employing urban designers.
A Pradhan Mantri Shahari Sadak Yojana that enables states and cities to adopt the six measures outlined above could transform India’s 6 lakh km of urban roads (as per MoRTH 2020 estimates) in the next 10 years. Models such as Tender SURE. and CM GRIDS demonstrate that when clear standards and model tenders are in place, high-quality urban roads are not only possible, but replicable at scale.
Viswanathan is Executive Director and Surjyatapa Ray is Associate Manager at Urban Policy at Jana Urban Space Foundation
