Hill stations in India have witnessed a notable escalation in traffic congestion in recent years, particularly during weekends and the summer season. This phenomenon is notably pronounced in popular destinations across the country. On congested days, travel times along common routes can extend significantly. Similar challenges are evident in other hill stations nationwide, including Shimla, Kasauli, Mussoorie, Ranikhet and others. Notably, during New Year’s Eve in 2023, traffic congestion in and around Himachal Pradesh resulted in prolonged delays lasting for hours
It is not just the hills, our cities and towns are also a mess. As per the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2022 Global Liveability Index, all Indian cities are ranked in the bottom. Of the 173 places ranked, Bengaluru is the least liveable, with a rank of 146, followed by Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi at 143, 141 and 140, respectively.
One of the reasons for this is that we have failed to plan for the future. According to a survey by Bengaluru-based think tank Janaagraha, 39% of our cities and towns do not have an active master plan. Vienna is named the world’s most liveable city because, among other factors, the city was planned for the present infrastructural needs more than 100 years ago. In India, we do not plan for future population growth, most cities and towns are busy catching up with existing needs. Kodaikanal had 5,000 inhabitants two decades ago, as compared to 40,000 today. Similarly, the number of tourists visiting Kodaikanal has increased from 1 lakh in the 90s to about 10 million last year. In an ideal scenario, a draft master plan should have been conceived in the 90s, giving due consideration for population and tourist projection for the next five decades, based on which urban infrastructure work should have been taken up. Unfortunately, infrastructure in most hill stations remains nearly the same as what it was during the British Raj.
