According to the Sustainable Development Report (SDR) 2025, India has ranked 99th out of 167 countries. This is an improvement over the ranks of 112 and 109 in 2023 and 2024 respectively. However, India’s progress has not been uniform across the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). Major challenges remain in achieving seven goals with SDG 11 featuring prominently among them.

As part of the ‘2030 Agenda’, SDG 11 envisions cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The SDR 2025 considers four major indicators under SDG 11 and they are ~
(i)proportion of urban population living in slums (percentage); (ii)annual mean concentration of PM 2.5 (µ/m3); (iii)proportion of urban population with access to improved piped water sources (percentage) and (iv)proportion of urban population with convenient access to public transport.

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For the first two indicators, India’s scores have stagnated while there has been a decrease in the score for the third indicator in 2025. Contrary to the SDG 11 benchmark of universal water coverage, only about 65 per cent of urban households in India have access to improved water through pipes in 2022. Use of water is determined by peoples’ access to water from unpredictable daily supply. For example, as per the PRAJA’s report on ‘The Status of Civic Issues in Mumbai’ (2024), water is available on average for 5.37 hours. Even the available water is of questionable quality.

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The NSSO (2019) report indicates that almost half of the urban households had to treat drinking water received from all sources. Challenges of achieving SDGs by 2030 is perhaps nowhere more evident than for those living in slums. Slums in general have the worst living conditions with inadequate access to basic services and housing and are also home to large number of informal residents with insecure tenure. Compared to the Government of India’s water availability norms of 135 litres per capita per day (lpcd), slums in Mumbai receive on average 45 lpcd of water.

Such inadequacy entails huge cost burden on the........

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