Short-sighted infrastructure planning results in premature demolition and fiscal waste. Examine in light of recent judicial observations and suggest institutional reforms.

In October 2026, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court advised that land for bus stands, hospitals, colleges and markets be acquired with space for future expansion [1]. It called demolition within 5–10 years for lack of space an "unnecessary wastage of public funds" [1]. This points to a planning failure that keeps recurring.

Judicial observations: how short-sightedness wastes money

• Premature demolition: the petitioner was a small trader in Nagercoil Corporation's market complex. It was built in 2015 and opened in 2017, so it was barely a decade old [1].
• Double capital cost: public money is spent on the first structure and then again on demolition and rebuilding [1].
• Costlier late acquisition: the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 allows compensation of up to 4× market value (rural) and 2× (urban) [2]. That makes buying land in pieces after a site is developed expensive.
• Livelihood loss: small vendors who run their businesses in public buildings are displaced again and again [1].

Root causes

• No master plans: 65% of India's 7,933 urban settlements have none, so there is no document in which to reserve expansion space [3].
• Planner deficit: fewer than 4,000 town planner posts are sanctioned, about half of them vacant, against a need of over 12,000 [3].
• Short political and budget cycles favour cheaper, smaller projects that can open within one term.

The counter-risk: over-acquisition

• The CAG found that DDA had no single database of the land it had acquired and the land still vacant [4].
• In one MIDC industrial area, only 231 of 3,284 allottees (about 7%) had fully used their plots [5].

Institutional reforms

• Master plans with marked expansion zones: upgrade state Town and Country Planning Acts, as NITI Aayog recommends [3].
• Planning capacity: fill vacant planner posts and add lateral-entry posts [3].
• Land registers first: an agency should disclose its unused land before seeking more.
• Test "future need" in the Social Impact Assessment (SIA): justify expansion land as a public purpose backed by a demand forecast [6].
• Phased design with a sunset: Section 101 already requires land left unused for five years to be returned [2].
• Life-cycle costing in project appraisal, so that rebuilding costs show up when the project is approved.

Foresight in planning and prudent spending go together. Expansion space should be planned, recorded and time-bound, and urban local bodies need the capacity to plan it under the 74th Amendment. That would turn the High Court's advice into routine practice and advance SDG 11's goal of sustainable cities.