Union Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday, 11 June 2026 highlighted key moments from the inaugural session of the 13th BRICS Urbanisation Forum 2026, describing it as an 'engrossing' opening to the multi-nation dialogue on urban development. The event is being held under India's BRICS Chairship in 2026, positioning New Delhi as the convenor of a critical conversation on cities and sustainable growth across the Global South.

Context

Khattar, who oversees the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, shared highlights from the forum's inaugural session, signalling active ministerial engagement with India's BRICS agenda. The BRICS Urbanisation Forum is a recurring platform where member nations exchange experiences on housing, city governance, and sustainable urban development. The 13th edition arrives at a moment when expanded BRICS membership has broadened the scope for cross-country learning, drawing in economies at varying stages of urbanisation.

India's role as BRICS Chair in 2026 places it at the centre of shaping the grouping's urban policy agenda for the year. The minister's public post underscores that urbanisation is being treated as a flagship theme of India's chairship, not a peripheral one.

Policy Backdrop

India's engagement with BRICS on urbanisation is rooted in a broader domestic policy architecture. The Smart Cities Mission, launched in 2015, set out to drive technology-enabled urban transformation across 100 Indian cities, while the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), also initiated in 2015, targeted basic infrastructure upgrades in 500 cities. These missions give India a substantive policy record to bring to multilateral urban dialogues.

The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), established in 2014, has been a key financing instrument for infrastructure and sustainable urban projects across member states, providing an institutional backbone to the forum's discussions. India previously hosted the BRICS Summit in 2021, where sustainable urbanisation and smart cities featured prominently, establishing continuity with the 2026 forum's themes.

Stakeholders and Impact

Urban local bodies, city planners, and municipal administrators across BRICS nations stand to benefit from the knowledge-sharing that the forum enables. For India specifically, the forum offers a platform to showcase domestic urban schemes and attract multilateral support for housing and infrastructure goals. The expanded BRICS membership means that megacities and fast-growing urban centres from a wider set of Global South nations are now part of the conversation.

Climate resilience, affordable housing, and digital urban governance are among the structural challenges that BRICS cities collectively face. The forum's dialogue is expected to feed into outcome documents that could shape member-state urban policies and NDB financing priorities.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to subsequent sessions of the 13th BRICS Urbanisation Forum and any joint declarations or cooperation frameworks that emerge. Observers will watch whether India tables specific proposals on housing finance or smart infrastructure within the BRICS framework. Broader outcome documents from the forum are expected to feed into the annual BRICS Summit agenda, where India's chairship will seek to consolidate the year's sectoral dialogues into binding commitments.