Footpaths first, tech later: What broken pavements say about India’s development model

The road to tech supremacy is paved with, well, intentions. But what if the pavements themselves are hellish? Or, as is the case for all practical purposes, non-existent?

Now, frankly, if I hear or read another word on AI, I will recreate that scene of Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goth in Schindler's List, shooting not prisoners, but attendees of a just-concluded expo (that happened to also include a summit) from my balcony. Instead, let's engage in something far more pedestrian, shall we?

Most of us avoid walking in our cities. And I don't mean getting out of your car and test-driving your Bruno Magli brogues and Miu Miu suedes till you reach your destination a few metres away and back. Or doing rounds inside the compounds of your Golden Castle of Stromberg. Or drive to Lodhi Gardens and pretend you're Macron out in Mumbai for a day. I mean traverse from one point to another during the normalcy of a normal urban Indian day.


I do. And it feels like a post-Apocalyptic Squid Game.

Now, I know you'll immediately launch into whereaboutery and point out that your city has wonderful footpaths where you regularly walk as pleasurably as one of Baudelaire's flaneurs - detached, intellectual wanderers in the bustling modern city. Sure, there are stretches in Mumbai's Fort area, Delhi's Connaught Place, Kolkata's Lake Area...

...But let's face it, if there's one thing that marks viksit from a 'bullsit' - apart from air quality - is a city's footpaths. You see them on our city masterplans, in the freshly-laid cement stretch outside a mall. But when you venture beyond, they disappear - swallowed by parked vehicles, debris, or the eternal entrails of encroachments politely called 'the informal sector'.

Not to sound all grim and oped-ish on a Sunday morning just after India got the coveted Guinness World Record title for 'Most pledges received for an AI responsibility campaign in 24 hours,' but a 2025 Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre of Injury and IIT Delhi report, 'India Status Report on Road Safety' found that only 56% and 48% of roads had footpaths in Delhi and West Bengal, respectively. Maharashtra had the highest footpath cover with 73%, J&K undisputedly the lowest with 3%.

But even cities with footpaths that make it to the % side of the kerb are tributaries of beartraps walking through which is an extremely stressful version of running a gauntlet. (Yes, we have a lot of people - BUT NOT ENOUGH FUNCTIONAL FOOTPATHS.)

India's pavements are the true metaphors for governance and its citizenry. They exist in policy documents, are inaugurated with sombre nomenclattering. But most are sidestepped to papdi crumble. Which is why the 'non-existent' egg that is the footpath has forced the chicken that is the pedestrian to cross the road by walking along it.

Pavements here are not just missing, but are actively hostile, making me truly believe that our cities conspire to make everyone take vehicles even for short distances. The mob can handle the walking, which, outside curated walks, is seen as a primitive activity best done by our teeming urban villagers.

Which is why my hero right now is Prabhavathi Amma, a senior citizen who was caught last week on video at the Eranhipalam traffic signal in Kozhikode, Kerala, refusing to give way to a scooter that had gone on to the footpath to dodge traffic on the road. While other pedestrians were seen to make way for the standard 2-wheeler-on-the-footpath in the usual 'We are like this only' fashion, Prabhavathi refused to budge. She told the man to get back on the road, threatening to send a video recording of the trespasser to the police.

Give Prabhavathi Amma an award. Make her the face that launches a thousand footpaths India can walk safely and comfortably on. Because to be remotely considered a country worth being genuinely admired - instead of just being lip-lauded by foreigners as the 'future of technology' so they can get a foot into this teeming 'sell, sell, and buy cheap...but from afar!' market - we gotta have footpaths that make walking worth the strides. Otherwise, we'll always have 'abroad' to enjoy the everyday outdoors.