Megaprojects and the Re-shaping of Urban Futures: Governance and Equity in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor

As India prepares for an urban future, new, centralised state projects of infrastructure and city-building are underway. The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) is among the most ambitious, aiming to foster industrial and job growth by leveraging connectivity and urbanisation. The DMIC requires coordination but also engenders conflict between state and non-state stakeholders at multiple scales (national, regional and local), with competing interests and developmental agendas, underscoring how notions of the common good are contested and re-negotiated locally. Through comparative field research in three sites within the DMIC, two in Delhi and one in Ahmedabad, this project will analyse how contentious politics and institutional pluralism shape the roll-out of megaprojects. It will also examine how enhanced connectivity and incorporation into infrastructure networks shape urban political economies, governance and socio-spatial inequalities.

The research from this project has been used to produce the following policy briefs: Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor in Gujarat: a Mirage or a Reality? and Land Acquisition for Mega Industrialisation: is Town Planning Scheme a Solution?