India's Walkability Crisis: Why Reclaiming Our Footpaths is a Litmus Test for Urban Governance
A Supreme Court judgment has elevated the right to a safe footpath to a fundamental right, forcing a reckoning with India's car-centric urban design and its public health and safety consequences.
Pre-requisite: The Ground Beneath Our Feet
To understand the debate on walkability in India, it is essential to grasp the key legal terms, the timeline of urban development that led to this crisis, and the institutions responsible for shaping our city streets.
(1) KEY TERMS
- Walkability — A measure of how friendly an area is to walking, considering factors like the presence and quality of footpaths, safety from traffic, lighting, tree cover, and access to amenities.
- Article 21 of the Constitution — This fundamental right states, “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” The Supreme Court has, through decades of interpretation, expanded its scope to include the right to a clean environment, dignity, and, following a 2026 judgment, safe passage on footpaths.
- Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) — A term in transport planning for non-motorised road users, primarily pedestrians and cyclists, as well as two-wheeler riders, who are most at risk of injury or death in road accidents.
- Article 19(1)(d) of the Constitution — This article guarantees all citizens the fundamental right “to move freely throughout the territory of India,” which the Supreme Court has now linked to the provision of safe pedestrian infrastructure.
(2) BACKGROUND & TIMELINE
The degradation of pedestrian infrastructure in India is a result of decades of policy choices. Post-liberalisation economic growth, beginning in 1991, spurred rapid urbanisation and a sharp increase in private vehicle ownership. Urban planning, particularly from the late 1990s onwards, overwhelmingly prioritised motorised transport, focusing on building flyovers and widening roads, often at the expense of footpaths. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), launched in 2005, funded major urban infrastructure projects, but the emphasis remained largely on vehicle mobility. While policies like the National Urban Transport Policy (2006) mentioned prioritising non-motorised transport, implementation was weak. The situation culminated in the Supreme Court’s judgment in Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz vs P. Ayyappan in June 2026, which constitutionally mandated the provision of safe footpaths.
(3) INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
- Supreme Court of India: The apex judicial body, which has the power of judicial review and can interpret the Constitution. Its June 2026 judgment is the catalyst for the current policy focus on walkability.
- Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH): The central government ministry responsible for road infrastructure. Its Transport Research Wing publishes the annual 'Road Accidents in India' report, a key data source on pedestrian fatalities.
- Municipal Corporations/Urban Local Bodies (ULBs): The primary government agencies responsible for the planning, construction, and maintenance of city-level infrastructure, including roads and footpaths. Their capacity and political will are central to implementing walkability policies.
- World Health Organization (WHO): A UN agency that sets global health standards. Its 2024 India Physical Activity Profile provides critical data linking poor urban environments to rising inactivity and non-communicable diseases.
The Issue Explained: From Civic Neglect to Constitutional Right
For decades, the state of footpaths in Indian cities—broken, encroached upon, or entirely absent—has been a persistent civic issue. However, a confluence of public health data, road fatality statistics, and a pivotal judicial intervention has reframed it as a crisis of governance and a violation of fundamental rights.
### What is the core issue highlighted by the Supreme Court?
The central issue is the legal status of a pedestrian's right to a safe walking space. In its judgment in Maniyar Iliyaz @ Shaik Riyaz vs P. Ayyappan (June 2026), the Supreme Court of India held that the ability to walk on demarcated footpaths is a fundamental right. The Court explicitly linked this right to two constitutional provisions: Article 21 (Right to Life and Personal Liberty) and Article 19(1)(d) (Right to move freely throughout the territory of India). The judgment observed that forcing citizens to walk on roads designed for vehicles, due to unusable or non-existent footpaths, directly endangers their life and curtails their freedom of movement. The Court directed all States and Union Territories to frame policies for the provision, maintenance, and protection of footpaths, moving the issue from municipal discretion to a constitutional mandate.
### How severe is the public health and safety crisis?
The lack of walkable spaces has created parallel crises in public health and road safety. On the health front, the built environment discourages physical activity. The World Health Organization (WHO)’s India Physical Activity Profile 2024 estimates that 49.4% of Indian adults fail to meet the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. The report notes the situation is more acute for women, with 57.2% being insufficiently active, and for adolescents (aged 11-17), where the figure is 74%. This sedentary lifestyle is a major contributor to the rise of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, placing an immense burden on the healthcare system.
The road safety implications are equally stark. According to the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) report, ‘Road Accidents in India 2024’, pedestrians and two-wheeler riders are the most vulnerable groups, together accounting for nearly 67% of all road fatalities, or 1.28 lakh deaths. Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for 2024 corroborates this, placing the share of these vulnerable users at over 60% of total road deaths. The absence of a footpath forces a direct conflict between pedestrians and motorised vehicles on the main carriageway.
### What are the systemic failures in urban planning and governance?
The crisis is rooted in a systemic bias in urban planning that has prioritized vehicle throughput over human mobility. The problem is not merely a lack of funds but a failure of design, regulation, and enforcement. Most urban road projects are engineered with a primary focus on accommodating cars, with footpaths often being narrow, discontinuous, and not barrier-free. This design failure is compounded by a governance failure in enforcement. Footpaths are routinely usurped for parking, by street vendors, or for dumping construction debris. Civic bodies often conduct anti-encroachment drives that fail to provide a lasting solution.
As Dr. Chandrakant Lahariya notes in The Hindu, the solution is not a punitive war on street vendors, who have legitimate economic claims, but a planned allocation of street space that designates clear zones for walking, vending, and parking. The current state of affairs reflects a breakdown in the ability of municipal corporations to manage public space and enforce existing regulations, such as those prohibiting parking on pavements.
### What is the proposed path forward?
The implicit government position, reflected in decades of urban planning, has favoured motorised transport by focusing on road-widening and flyover construction. The proposed path forward, articulated by public health experts and now mandated by the judiciary, calls for a people-centric approach that treats footpaths as critical public health infrastructure. This requires mandating the inclusion of continuous, shaded, and barrier-free footpaths in all new road projects. Concurrently, encroachment control must become a continuous and transparent process, with stringent penalties for violations like parking on pavements.
Urban planning must also reorient street design to prioritise pedestrian-heavy zones such as schools, markets, and public transport hubs. This shift could be driven by a national active-mobility mission that integrates urban development, transport, and health policies. Such an approach would mirror the long-term strategies of cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, which have successfully reclaimed streets for pedestrians and cyclists, leading to better health outcomes and lower pollution.
Conclusion: The Footpath as a Barometer of Governance
The Supreme Court's June 2026 judgment has altered the discourse on urban infrastructure in India. The issue of walkability is no longer a matter of civic aesthetics but a constitutional imperative, making this a critical moment for urban reform.
The judgment has gained immediate urgency by providing citizens with a powerful legal tool to demand accountability from municipal bodies. It transforms the daily struggle of pedestrians into a fight for a fundamental right, creating a clear basis for public interest litigation. With India battling crises of non-communicable diseases and road safety, urban planning experts argue that creating walkable cities is one of the most effective, low-cost, and equitable interventions available to policymakers.
The next five years will likely see a rise in legal challenges citing the Maniyar Iliyaz precedent, compelling states to formulate new walkability policies by 2027-28. The primary challenge will be implementation, which will test the constitutional mandate against entrenched interests favouring car-centric development. The allocation for pedestrian infrastructure in the Union Budget for 2027-28 will be a crucial indicator of the central government's commitment, with progress expected to be uneven across cities depending on local political will.
Ultimately, the struggle for footpaths serves as a litmus test for the quality of urban governance in India, revealing whether a city is managed for all its citizens or only for its vehicle-owning minority. Successfully reclaiming footpaths would signify a municipal government capable of enforcing laws and prioritising public health. The condition of a city's footpaths has thus become a direct reflection of the state's commitment to the life, liberty, and dignity of the ordinary citizen.