India 2nd National-Local Dialogue

The 2nd India National-Local Dialogue will take place at ARISE Cities Forum ‘2025: From BHARAT to BELEM’ which will be held on October 8-9 in New Delhi. The first part of the dialogue will focus on ‘Transitioning towards Innovative Cities’. The Government of India, through its various flagship missions, has been constantly encouraging cities to adopt technology while developing infrastructure. Transitioning towards digitalization in Indian cities is a multi-faceted process which is being driven by the Government of India’s flagship missions, such as Smart Cities Mission, National Urban Innovation Stack, National Urban Digital Mission, etc. In this session GEF-7 and GEF-6 cities will be invited to discuss and showcase their work, to implementing agencies and national actors. 

The second part of the dialogue will be focused on Transit-Oriented-Development, building upon the 1st National-Local Dialogue that took place in May 2023 in New Delhi. Since then the Government of India in its Union budget 2024- 25, has identified 14 large cities, including Chennai, Pune, Surat (GEF 7 cities), having a population of more than 30 lakhs for developing transit-oriented development plans. UrbanShift Global platform, through its interventions, has supported the cities by developing their capacities through various technical workshops, online and in-person city academies. The session will focus on understanding the concept of ToD, its principles in the Indian context with a focus on policy development, followed by area-level planning specific to ToD in Indian cities.