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Highlighting the precocious nonaccomplishment of productivity owing to mobility issues, the Economic Survey 2025-26, released connected Thursday (January 29, 2026) noted that solving the situation of moving the astir radical requires prioritising modes with the top carrying capacity, crossed abbreviated and agelong distances.
Economic Survey 2025-26 revises India’s imaginable maturation complaint to 6.8-7.2% scope | LIVE
“In estimates, it is evident that the costs of mobility issues are precocious and connected the rise,” the Survey notes, citing studies from assorted probe institutes tabulating the nonaccomplishment successful productivity owing to postulation congestion. A Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) study connected Delhi’s congestion places the productivity nonaccomplishment for an unskilled idiosyncratic astatine betwixt ₹7,200-₹19,600 per year, and for a skilled idiosyncratic astatine betwixt ₹8,300-₹23,800. For a highly skilled worker, congestion-related productivity losses whitethorn emergence up to betwixt ₹9,000-₹25,900 a year.
The Survey cites a moving insubstantial by the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) which adds different dimension: nonaccomplishment of productive hours. Late arrivals owed to postulation congestion amounted to astir 7.07 lakh hours for Bengaluru successful 2018, translating to a monetary outgo of astir ₹11.7 billion. A akin study successful 2018 by Uber-BCG pegged estimated costs owed to postulation congestion successful Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata astatine astir $22 cardinal per year.
“When proscription systems are inadequate, the city’s vitality diminishes—congestion, pollution, noise, and reduced productivity look arsenic symptoms of decline,” the Survey notes.
It identifies a increasing dependence connected backstage vehicles arsenic the cardinal underlying issues. “The captious signs of our cities are mediocre due to the fact that roads are utilized much arsenic retention for vehicles alternatively than corridors for people,” it notes, stating that streets were not congested due to the fact that of precocious national movement, but alternatively owed to cars with low-occupancy.
It stresses the request for high-capacity nationalist transport, and besides notes the request for information archetypal and last-mile entree done walking, cycling and shared feeders. Also important are demand-based parking and “transit-oriented improvement to reallocate scarce municipality abstraction from retention to movement.” it notes. “Where these conditions hold, backstage vehicles revert to an option, not a compulsion,” it adds.
The Survey points to a request to plan cities to “prioritise the question of people, not vehicles.” It quotes the National Urban Transport Policy of 2014 which pushes for argumentation to recognise that “people inhabit centre signifier successful our cities, and each plans should purpose for their communal payment and well-being.”
The survey states that a deficiency of viable alternatives for backstage vehicular usage is what causes congestion and allied issues, “as citizens vie for constricted roadworthy abstraction utilizing geometrically inefficient transport modes.”
It points to the enlargement of wide accelerated transit arsenic a plus, with astir 1,036 km of Metro/RRTS [Regional Rapid Transit System] operational crossed astir 24 cities. A full of 1,036 km of Metro/RRTS are operational crossed astir 24 cities. The archetypal Delhi–Ghaziabad–Meerut Namo Bharat RRTS corridor has been cited arsenic an encouraging example, reducing question times betwixt Delhi and Meerut to little than an hr implicit the 1.5 to 2 hours it takes via road.
The corridor has besides been folded into plans for India’s archetypal statutory implementation of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), with greenfield townships planned successful New Meerut and New Ghaziabad astir RRTS stations. The enlargement of labour marketplace has besides been cited arsenic a benefit; portion operation generated astir 166 lakh mandays betwixt 2019 and 2025, operations volition reportedly make 12 lakh mandays a year.
The Survey notes that astir 2,900 km of imaginable Namo Bharat RRTS corridors person been identified crossed determination clusters specified arsenic Bengaluru–Mysuru–Tumakuru–Hosur, Chennai–Vellore–Villupuram–Chengalpattu and Hyderabad–Warangal.
