India’s cities are expanding at an unprecedented pace, absorbing people, infrastructure, and economic activity at scale. What urban governance frameworks have been slower to absorb is a reality already playing out on the ground: animals are an inseparable part of urban life. From community dogs and pigeons to cattle and urban wildlife, animals intersect daily with public health systems, waste management, climate resilience, and civic safety. Treating animal welfare as a marginal or standalone issue is no longer tenable for cities that aspire to be resilient, clean, safe, and well governed.

Mumbai illustrates this clearly. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation operates with an annual budget of approximately ₹74,000 crore, yet allocations for animal and veterinary services hover around ₹14 crore, when there are lakhs of community dogs that share dense public spaces and tens of thousands of dog bite incidents reported annually. Public health experts stress that rabies persistence is not driven by the presence of community dogs but by gaps in prevention. Scientific evidence shows that vaccinating at least 70 percent of the dog population is necessary to interrupt transmission. While human fatalities have declined due to improved access to post-exposure treatment, inconsistent vaccination coverage allows the virus to continue circulating in cities. 

Elsewhere, fragmented implementation and underfunded shelters weaken impact. Poorly planned shelters often become overcrowded, especially when surrounding rural and peri-urban areas lack parallel sterilisation and vaccination efforts. In this context, shelters and Animal Birth Control programmes function as essential governance tools rather than welfare measures alone. 

The World Health Organization notes that nearly 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, often exacerbated by urban density, poor sanitation, and unmanaged animal populations. Public health, however, is only one part of the picture. In cities like Mumbai, inadequate waste management plays a decisive role. Open garbage piles attract dogs, cattle, pigs, birds, and rodents, increasing human–animal conflict and disease risk. When animals scatter waste across streets, the result is not just visual disorder but heightened exposure to pathogens for humans and animals alike.

Climate change further sharpens these vulnerabilities. Heatwaves, flooding, and extreme rainfall events disproportionately affect animals first. Street dogs, cattle, and urban wildlife have limited access to shade, water, or safe shelter during heat stress. During floods, animals are often the earliest casualties, swept away or trapped in low-lying areas. Their distress is an early indicator of environmental stress that will soon affect human populations as well. Yet disaster management plans in most cities rarely include animals explicitly, despite the fact that animal rescue and sheltering become urgent civic concerns during every major flood or cyclone.
At its core, this is a governance challenge rather than an animal welfare issue alone.

Responsibilities span public health, sanitation, urban planning, disaster management, and animal welfare, and outcomes depend on how well these systems work together with citizens, civil society organisations, and philanthropy. When coordination across these actors is limited, implementation becomes uneven and responses tend to be reactive rather than evidence-led. Cities that see more durable progress are often those where municipal systems are supported by capable NGOs, engaged residents, and philanthropic funding that strengthens long-term capacity. Urban coexistence, in this sense, rests on shared responsibility and sustained collaboration, not on the actions of any single institution.

A smart city framework that ignores animals overlooks a key dimension of urban systems. Animals are urban stakeholders, protected under law and embedded in the social and ecological fabric of cities. How a city manages its animals often reflects how it manages vulnerability more broadly, whether it plans ahead, coordinates across departments, and balances growth with sustainability.

Integrating animal welfare into urban governance does not mean halting development or privileging animals over people. It means recognising interdependence. Effective waste management reduces conflict and disease. Climate-resilient planning protects both human and animal life. Corridor-sensitive infrastructure safeguards biodiversity while reducing accidents. Well-funded, monitored sterilisation and vaccination programmes lower public health risks. Community engagement around feeding and care reduces social friction rather than amplifying it.

India’s cities will continue to grow. The question is whether governance systems will evolve with them. A city cannot be truly smart if it plans only for human convenience and ignores the living systems it displaces or absorbs. Resilience, safety, and sustainability depend on coexistence.

Animal welfare, then, is not an add-on to urban governance. It is a test of it.

Siddharth Agarwal is Foundation Lead, and Pushnami Kasture, Senior Associate Communications, Upadhyaya Foundation.