Noting that the urban population is expected to increase from 350 million in 2010 to 600 million by 2031, a committee on Monday said that urban infrastructure will require a total investment of R39.2 lakh crore (at 2009-10 prices) over the next 20 years.

The high-powered expert committee on urban infrastructure, formed in 2009, and chaired by Icrier chairperson and economist Isher Ahluwalia, has said that of this total investment, R17.3 lakh crore (almost 44%) will be for urban roads, R8 lakh crore for sectors delivering urban services and R4 lakh crore for renewal and redevelopment including slums, as the backlog for this sector is very large, ranging from 50% and 80% across cities.

Moreover, the committee has also suggested a New Improved Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (NIJNNURM) whose scale will be expanded from the current 0.1% of GDP to 0.25% of GDP every year. Further, as part of the NIJNNURM, the committee has also asked urban local bodies (ULBs) to attract private sector participation where the smaller municipalities come together to issue bonds to raise funds.

?The scope and breadth of urbanisation can?t be looked at in a five-year span. The next phase of reforms has to happen and along with that we have to look at just not reforms in trade and investment. We could look at reforms in governance,? said urban development minister Kamal Nath after receiving the committee?s Report on Indian Urban Infrastructure and Services.

The report looks at eight sectors ? water supply, sewerage, solid waste management, storm water drains, urban roads, urban transport, street lighting and traffic support infrastructure ? and makes a case for increasing investment in urban infrastructure from 0.7% of GDP in 2011-12 to 1.1% by 2031-32.

?Almost 30% of our population is urban and our definition of urban is very conservative. Rural-urban migration has played a very small role in this and only 20% of the increase in urban population is due to migration,? said Ahluwalia.Emphasising that mandates for funding of ULBs are needed, she added that there should be a constitutional provision for states to share a certain percentage of taxes for urban development. The report found that almost 25% of the population in many Indian cities lives in slums.

?Some taxes should become exclusive for local governments where the latter make the NIJNNURM on a programme approach and not a project approach as the new scheme will be accessible to all cities in the country. This will be judged on the basis of the outcome of service delivery,? Ahluwalia added.