Cityscape 2.0 | IIM Rohtak | Lucknow Climate-Resilient Urban Infrastructure Strategy

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1. About the Case Competition

Cityscape 2.0 is a business strategy case competition co-hosted by IIM Lucknow and IIM Rohtak in partnership with the Lucknow Development Authority, making it one of the few B-school competitions directly tied to a live urban governance challenge. Team Winners from IIM Rohtak took first place, delivering a comprehensive urban resilience strategy for a real client with real infrastructure constraints and a real policy paradox to unpack.

2. Problem Statement Overview

Lucknow has grown 31% in population between 2001 and 2021, but its infrastructure has not kept pace. Over 60–65% of the city depends on groundwater, which is depleting at 4 cm of land subsidence per year due to overextraction. More than 1,100 stormwater drains connect directly to sewage lines, creating flood-sewage mixing during every monsoon. Green cover has declined 40% in 30 years, leaving less than 12% tree canopy in new growth corridors. The policy paradox is stark: ₹1,500 Cr spent on the Gomti riverfront has left the river at Category E water quality; ₹15 Cr on drain cleaning did not prevent the city from flooding in its first rain of 2025. Smart City Mission progress has bypassed foundational climate resilience entirely.

3. What This Winning Deck Covers

The diagnosis section is the deck’s most impressive structural achievement, a three-layer causality map tracing Lucknow’s urban stress from symptoms (waterlogging, heat buildup) through proximate causes (clogged drains, sewer capacity gaps) to structural causes (weak zoning enforcement and institutional planning gaps). A primary survey of over 100 residents, supplemented by qualitative conversations with Lucknow-native students at IIM Rohtak, validates each symptom with ground-level data: 70% cite drainage as a key issue, 55% report waterlogging even during moderate rainfall, and 65% describe development activities as unsustainable.

The water strategy covers six distinct interventions, District Metered Areas with real-time flow sensors for leak detection, trenchless CIPP pipe relining at 60–70% lower cost than full replacement, mandatory groundwater recharge in new townships, treated wastewater reuse for parks, tiered water pricing, and multi-functional water basins modelled on Rotterdam’s dual-use monsoon storage and dry-season park design. For high-waterlogging zones in Old Lucknow, a “Market-First” micro-retrofit strategy deploys sub-surface drainage and AI-powered choke-point defence with staggered night-cycle construction to ensure zero daytime disruption to the 15,000 vendors in markets like Chowk, Aminabad, and Nakhas.

The greens module applies five parallel interventions for low-canopy zones: Miyawaki micro-forests on vacant plots, metro green corridor plantation with integrated bioswales, PPP-driven multi-use climate parks with floodable landscape design, a community-led tree stewardship model with QR-tracked ward committees, and a circular economy construction loop that converts C&D waste into recycled pavers for green infrastructure. The policy section applies John Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework to analyse political feasibility, identifying reform windows (monsoon crises, municipal elections), policy entrepreneurs (reform-oriented commissioners, civil society water activists), and actors from LDA to UP Jal Nigam to NGOs. This public policy feasibility framing for infrastructure reform is also explored in depth in Nautica 2026 – MDI Gurgaon.

The platform recommendation, the Lucknow Urban Digital Twin, is the deck’s most differentiating element. The team built an actual working prototype (lucidiimlucknow.netlify.app) and a sample policy document, not just a slide concept. The GIS-enabled platform simulates zoning and FAR scenarios for flood risk, tracks infrastructure CAPEX across city zones, and evaluates 20-year investment projections for climate-resilient builds.

Key Takeaways:

  • Three-layer causality mapping (symptoms → proximate → structural) is the right diagnostic structure for complex urban cases, it prevents surface-level recommendations
  • The “Policy Paradox” framing, showing how existing spending has failed, is more persuasive than a generic problem statement
  • Zero-disruption retrofit design (night-cycle construction, CSR-backed rent relief) is what separates theoretical infrastructure strategy from implementable urban planning
  • Building an actual prototype alongside the deck is a competition differentiator that signals execution credibility
  • Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework is an underused but powerful tool for assessing political feasibility of public sector recommendations

4. The Numbers

Total CAPEX is ₹850–1,200 Cr over a 5-year phased rollout, funded 30% each by Central Government and State/LDA, 25% via PPP-HAM at 12–15% IRR, and 15% via AA+-rated green bonds at 7.7% yield. The 5-year cost-benefit analysis shows total benefits of ₹1,530–2,640 Cr against costs of ₹1,075–1,425 Cr. Environmental targets by 2030: 55% flood runoff retention (from 15% baseline), +25 MLD groundwater recharge, 3–5°C urban cooling, and Gomti River improvement from Category E to Category C.

5. Who Should Study This Deck

This deck is essential for MBA students targeting public policy, urban infrastructure, sustainability consulting, or government advisory roles, particularly for competitions involving civic bodies, smart city mandates, or climate resilience. The combination of primary research, layered causality diagnosis, global benchmarking (Rotterdam, Tokyo, Wuhan, Singapore), policy feasibility analysis, and a working digital prototype makes it one of the most complete urban strategy decks available for B-school preparation. Explore more such decks at CaseBuzz.

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