Urban Flood Management Programme (2024): Assessing Flood Resilience in India’s Seven Most Populous Cities

Policy Update
Sandra Menon

Introduction

India’s seven most populous cities, home to a large share of the country’s urban population and an even larger share of its economic output, have in recent years become synonymous with monsoon paralysis: waterlogged arterial roads, submerged metro and airport approaches, and, in the worst years, loss of life.

The seven cities of Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Pune lie in vastly different regions in India’s hydro-meteorological landscape; however, they have all experienced floods in the last decade that were serious enough to bring the city to a standstill, such as the 2015 floods in Chennai and 2024 floods in Mumbai due to excess rainfall of over 300 mm within six hours, and 2024 pre-monsoon floods in Bengaluru owing to decades of lake encroachments and storm drain destruction.

In this context, the UFRMP has received approvals from the Union Government under recommendations made by the Fifteenth Finance Commission in 2023 and 2024 to implement it in these seven cities via the newly formed NDMF. This paper seeks to highlight the evolution of the programme in terms of its funding and design, as well as its achievements in the first two years since its implementation. Moreover, the governance challenges that will influence whether such centrally-funded flood control infrastructure translates into dry streets during the monsoon need to be examined.

Background

According to the recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission, it is required to establish a National Disaster Mitigation Fund of an amount equal to 20% of the total National Disaster Risk Management Fund amounting to ₹68,463 crore, during the award period from FY 2021-22 to FY 2025-26, which means a sum of ₹13,693 crore will be kept for local, community-based mitigation works rather than relief efforts after disaster strikes.

In order to achieve this target, the Commission has set aside an amount of ₹5,950 crore through four priority national schemes: support in twelve states prone to drought; managing earthquake and landslide risks in ten hill states; erosion mitigation and reduction of risks of urban floods in seven most populated cities. The amount allocated under the scheme of urban floods in particular would be ₹2,500 crore, with ₹500 crore each for Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata, and ₹250 crore each for Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune.

The approvals by the High Level Committee chaired by the Ministry of Home Affairs have come in two batches. The proposal submitted for Chennai, concerning the Chennai basin and implemented through the Greater Chennai Corporation, was the first approved on 27 November 2023, at an outlay of ₹561.29 crore, of which ₹500 crore is the central NDMF allocation. Six more cities – Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Pune – have received the approval together on 25 July 2024, at an outlay of ₹2,514.36 crore.

Thus, Phase I of the UFRMP, which applies to all seven cities, involves ₹3,075.65 crore, of which the central allocation is ₹2,482.62 crore. However, the programme has subsequently been extended. The next batch of approval for the Phase II of the scheme covering 11 additional cities namely Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Jaipur, Kanpur, Patna, Raipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Visakhapatnam, Indore, and Lucknow has been granted on 1 October 2025 with a total outlay of ₹2,444.42 crore. The total scope of the programme has thereby become 18 cities with a total outlay of approximately ₹5,520 crore, as reported to the Lok Sabha in July 2026.

Functioning

The scheme UFRMP receives its finances from NDMF within the scope of Disaster Management Act, 2005. It starts when projects are initiated by states and urban local bodies such as Greater Chennai Corporation, Kolkata Municipal Corporation, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, reviewed by the National Disaster Management Authority, and then submitted to the High Level Committee whose Chairman is Union Home Minister for final approval.

The Centre provides finance at 90 per cent of the sanctioned amount of the scheme from the NDMF and the State Government pays the remaining 10 per cent. The Central Government makes payments in three installments, 30, 40 and 30 per cent of the sanctioned central portion of the outlay respectively.

Approved measures are a combination of structural and non-structural interventions. The former involves improvements to stormwater drains, rejuvenation and interlinking of water bodies, construction of floodwalls, erosion control and nature-based solutions. Non-structural measures include city-level assessment of flood risk and vulnerability, flood forecasting and early warning systems, flood-resilient urban planning, and public engagement and awareness. NDMC has also prepared a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework which cities participating in the program are expected to follow.

This has led to quite specific projects at the city-level: in Hyderabad, the approved project involves rejuvenation of 47 lakes as part of flood-control structures, along with stormwater improvements; in Bangalore, the approved project finances 47 different flood mitigation measures relating to drainage and early warning systems; while in Guwahati’s Phase-II project (for comparison), this includes interlinking of water bodies, stormwater management, floodwalls, and nature-based erosion control measures.

Performance

As can be seen in Table 1, the breakup of Phase I’s ₹3,075.65 crore allocation that is in public domain is as follows. The four cities of Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru have announced their individual allocations through parliamentary answers. No information is available on the breakup of allocation to Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Pune.

Source: Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs replies to Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha questions (2024, 2025); Deccan Herald (2025); News First Prime (2024). *Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Pune figures are derived by subtracting the four individually disclosed cities from the published Phase I and six-city package totals; they are not separately published.

On the more limited issue of whether the sanctioned funds are coming to the states on time, the program seems to be working as planned. Kolkata has received its first installment of ₹150 crore, or 30 per cent of its ₹500 crore central fund, in November 2024; Hyderabad its first installment of ₹75 crore around the same time period; and Bengaluru its first installment of ₹71.62 crore in December 2024.

The translation of sanctioned money into works completed is an entirely different, and much less resolved, story. A reply of the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Parliament in December 2025 stated that cumulatively, flood-related works costing approximately ₹1,571.86 crore have been completed so far against a sanctioned amount of ₹3,000 crore, and this completion rate, which is not surprising at such an early stage of a program that was sanctioned mainly in 2024, reiterates the point that physical works are behind sanctioned ones.

This delay exists within the context of an even more serious scenario at the national level. Over the entire period covered by the Fifteenth Finance Commission award, the total National Disaster Mitigation Fund, which consists of a number of other components apart from the UFRMP, had a recommended allocation of ₹13,693 crore, out of which only ₹8,269.02 crore was allocated by the Central government, while only ₹1,091.81 crore, less than 8% of the recommended allocation, was utilised, as reported by an independent assessment of the use of Finance Commission allocations for disaster management.

While this aggregate covers mitigation efforts in areas other than urban flooding, such as drought, landslides and erosion, it also reflects the systemic problem of fund utilization in India’s disaster management finance system.

Impact

In this regard, UFRMP is the first-ever instance in which the central government will provide dedicated, long-term capital expenditure for the flood-proofing of India’s largest metropolitan cities, rather than just providing relief after the damage occurs in terms of post-disaster funds through State and National Disaster Response Funds, or general urban missions, whose storm water management modules are not focused on flood risk reduction alone.

The focus of the mission on lake and water body rejuvenation, with 47 lakes under each project of Hyderabad and Bengaluru, begins to address the problem of encroachment, cited consistently as the cause for flooding risk assessment, on paper at least. As much as 65 per cent of Bengaluru’s lakes and about 80 per cent of historic water bodies have been either encroached upon or degraded due to urban development. Early warning and community engagement measures, if executed as planned, would also allow cities to move away from reactive relief measures to proactive action, the need for which became evident in the form of 2024’s monsoons in Mumbai.

The constraints of this influence have been just as tangible. Since approval of Phase I plans only commenced in November 2023, and most central installations have only been issued up until 2024-25, the effectiveness of UFRMP in terms of its influence on actual flood outcomes through completion of its implementation in at least a full monsoon season has yet to be assessed. Flooding has still continued to happen in cities: for example, Bengaluru experienced widespread pre-monsoon flooding in the same period that UFRMP plans were approved and initial installations put in place.

Emerging Issues

Flood and drainage management of urban areas is still constitutionally the responsibility of the state and the municipalities involved; UFRMP acts as an add-on, and not a substitute for this; therefore, the ultimate success of the program still rests with the same municipal bodies, water boards and state PWDs whose ineffective drainage maintenance and encroachment control have led to the floods for which UFRMP was initiated.

Evaluations of the program reveal coordination problems between these various urban agencies, along with inadequate flood modeling and forecast systems at the city level. Another aspect of transparency issue is that the ₹2,514.36 crore six-city package is not publicly disaggregated: the allocations to the Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru cities are separately available in the parliamentary answers, but the other three cities do not have theirs revealed.

Another issue is that of central payment linking to the utilisation of the prior instalment, rather than to the verified flood mitigation results. This means that a city will be able to claim payments based on the completion of the drain construction works, without any additional reduction in water logging episodes being verified outside the process.

With the current 8 per cent rate of utilisation of the total National Disaster Mitigation Fund during the Fifteenth Finance Commission period, it should be admitted that there is a risk that low absorption rates may influence the pace of completion of works even if the sanction and first instalments have been provided on time in the UFRMP’s seven cities. Finally, one should note the need to verify whether the designs for the structural facilities, implemented within the framework of the programme, take into account more intensive rainfall events like the six-hour 300 millimetres’ rainfall event in Mumbai in 2024, rather than return periods.

Way Forward

A city-wise and line-item breakdown of the sanctioned expenditure, central component, releases made, and physical progress needs to be put in the public domain for each of the seven Phase I cities, while making good on the existing lack of individual disclosure of data for Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Pune, while the 11 Phase II cities need to follow the same yardstick right from the beginning without having to be recreated later on the basis of answers in parliament.

The last installment of central funding can be appropriately contingent not only on utilization of the previous installment but also on the achievement of an independently verified and pre-set benchmark of reducing flood risk factors like the period of waterlogging or coverage area affected in subsequent monsoons based on the NDMA’s own Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.

The formal coordination mechanism for UFRMP project components with the municipalities and parastatals that will manage the infrastructure post-transfer must be improved so that newly constructed stormwater drains and revitalized lakes do not slide back into disrepair and degradation as was the case previously, which led to the flood risks in the first place. Design standards in the UFRMP scheme should be reviewed with regard to revised rainfall intensity data based on the current climate reality, instead of the traditional design storm approach; this applies especially to urban centers such as Mumbai and Bengaluru, where single-precipitation events have already surpassed the assumptions made for designing drainage structures.

Last but not least, the issue of national fund absorption must be dealt with, instead of waiting for it to reappear; as the Sixteenth Finance Commission makes its own recommendations regarding disaster management, it can create its own mechanisms to ensure better utilization of the funding, possibly by adding instillation timelines and building state-level implementation capacities, such that the 8 per cent utilization of the Fifteenth Finance Commission’s National Disaster Mitigation Fund does not happen again.

References

1. Deccan Herald. (2023). Amit Shah-led High Level Committee approves disaster mitigation projects.

2. Deccan Herald. (2025). Armed with Rs 238 crore NDMF grant, BBMP plans 47 flood-mitigation works.

3. Down To Earth. (2026). As told to Parliament (July 28, 2026): Centre clears Rs 5,520 crore urban flood management programme for 18 cities.

4. ETV Bharat. (2025, October 1). Government approves Rs 4,645 crore for various mitigation projects in 9 states.

5. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. (2024). Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1835 – Integrated Urban Flood Management Plan.

6. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. (2024). Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 224 – Urban Flood Risk Management Programme (UFRMP).

7. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. (2025). Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 846 – Urban Flood Risk Management Programme.

8. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. (2025). Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 464 – Urban Flood Risk Management Programme.

9. News First Prime. (2024). Centre sanctions ₹275 crore funding for Bengaluru’s urban flood control project.

10. Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs. (2024). Threat of urban floods.

11. Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies. (2026). India’s public finance for disaster management: Hits and misses of the Sixteenth Finance Commission.

12. Study IQ. (2025). Urban Flood Risk Management Programme: Building flood-resilient Indian cities.

13. Vajiram and Ravi. (2026). Urban flooding in India: Data, cities, causes, impacts, measures.

14. World Economic Forum. (2024). India invests in city flood mitigation, water conservation and other urban transformation stories you need to read.

About the Contributor

Sandra Menon is a Research and Editorial Intern at IMPRI and a first-year Master’s student in Public Policy at M.O.P. Vaishnav College for Women, Chennai. Her academic interests lie in public policy and governance.

Acknowledgement

The author extends sincere thanks to the IMPRI team for their guidance.

Reviewed by: Pritha Chowdhury & Sneha Kohli

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of IMPRI (Impact and Policy Research Institute).

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