The Union Budget 2026 signals a clear recognition that India’s growth will be anchored in its cities. Infrastructure outlay remains high at ₹12.2 trillion. The government has announced seven high-speed rail corridors, continued metro expansion, and a new push for “city economic regions.” Yet one dimension of urban infrastructure remains underweighted: mobility within cities.
The Economic Survey 2025–26 describes transport as the “bloodstream, spine and muscles” of urban economies. The description is apt. Urban mobility shapes productivity, wages, and competitiveness. Long commutes are not a lifestyle inconvenience. They are an economic tax.
READ | RoDTEP scheme after Budget 2026: Fiscal tightening, strategic risks
The Centre for Science and Environment estimates that congestion costs an unskilled worker in Delhi up to ₹19,600 a year and a skilled worker about ₹26,000. These losses fall directly on disposable income at a time when urban housing and transport costs are rising.
Bengaluru alone lost an estimated 700,000 productive hours to traffic delays in 2018, according to the Institute for Social and Economic Change. A joint Uber–Boston Consulting Group report puts the annual congestion cost of India’s four largest metros at $22 billion. The TomTom Traffic Index continues to rank Bengaluru among the world’s most congested cities, with Kolkata and Pune among the slowest.
India has built urban transport assets at a pace unthinkable two decades ago. The visual transformation is undeniable. But rail-based systems cannot resolve mobility when the surrounding ecosystem remains tilted towards private vehicles.
Road space, not rail length
The constraint is not ambition but allocation. Indian cities function as storage yards for parked vehicles rather than corridors for moving people. Footpaths are encroached. Cycling is unsafe. Buses remain peripheral.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs recommends 40–60 buses per 100,000 people. Most cities fall well short. Fleet shortages are most severe outside major metros. For residents of smaller and fast-growing cities, the choice is rarely between car and metro. It is between a two-wheeler and an unreliable bus.
READ | Budget 2026: Semiconductors drive MeitY’s recalibrated tech spend
The failure is not merely capital. It is operational. City bus systems struggle because operating subsidies are uncertain, fare policies are politically constrained, and responsibility is split between states, urban local bodies, and special-purpose vehicles. Capital grants without revenue certainty weaken service quality over time.
City economic regions and urban governance gap
The Budget’s proposal for “city economic regions” could address more than infrastructure coordination. Urbanisation has spilled beyond municipal cores into peri-urban belts, but transport planning remains locked within administrative boundaries.
A functional urban region approach could align suburban rail, buses, metros, and freight corridors with actual travel patterns. It could also influence land use, limiting the steady drift of jobs and housing farther apart.
But this will require institutional clarity. Urban transport planning remains fragmented across state transport departments, development authorities, metro corporations, and underpowered urban local bodies. Metropolitan Planning Committees, mandated under the Constitution, remain weak or inactive. Without governance reform, city economic regions risk becoming another planning label without operational authority.
People before vehicles
Urban mobility planning in India remains vehicle-centric. Flyovers, highways, and metro extensions are justified using projected traffic volumes or engineering norms rather than observed travel behaviour. This is the core weakness.
Cities move people, not vehicles. That distinction matters. Congestion eases only when buses are frequent, predictable, and comfortable enough to attract the middle class. Dedicated bus lanes and modern fleets move more people per metre of road than flyovers ever can.
READ | STT hike in Budget 2026 sharpens push to rein in derivatives trading
Yet buses compete for space with parked cars and private vehicles. Parking remains underpriced or unregulated in most cities. Road space is rationed administratively rather than priced. Without demand management—through parking policy, enforcement, and selective restraint on private vehicle use—supply-side investments will be absorbed by induced traffic.
Intermediate and informal transport also shapes daily mobility. Auto-rickshaws, shared autos, and feeder services determine first- and last-mile connectivity, especially for low-income and peripheral commuters. Ignoring these modes weakens the effectiveness of formal systems.
The missing data and systems layer
Transport planning continues without regular data on how people actually travel: trip origins and destinations, purpose, time of day, income, vehicle ownership, or mode choice. In the absence of such data, mobility policy becomes conjecture.
A periodic household travel survey covering even 2% of urban households would close this gap. Policy economists estimate such a survey would cost ₹5–10 crore per city—negligible relative to transport projects running into tens of thousands of crores.
Reliable data would prevent misallocation of capital and anchor investment decisions in demand rather than aspiration. It would also enable integrated digital systems—unified ticketing, real-time bus tracking, and multimodal coordination—that improve service reliability without large capital outlays.
What will decide outcomes
The Budget’s infrastructure push is substantial. Whether it delivers urban productivity gains depends on where mobility sits in the hierarchy of priorities.
High-speed rail and metro networks are necessary. They are not sufficient. The decisive layer lies below: buses, walkability, intermediate transport, pricing of road space, and institutional capacity to operate systems reliably.
If city economic regions embed people-first mobility planning and stable operating finance, infrastructure spending can translate into economic efficiency. If not, India risks building transport assets while remaining stalled at the same traffic signal.