Union Power and Housing Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday, June 12, 2026, highlighted the conclusion of the two-day BRICS Urbanisation Forum, calling it a 'valuable platform' for member nations and partner countries to exchange experiences and share innovative urban solutions.

Context

Posting on X at the close of the forum's second and final day, Khattar described the event as a premier gathering under India's BRICS 2026 presidency. The forum brought together urban policy officials and city planners from BRICS member states and partner countries to deliberate on shared challenges of rapid urbanisation and housing demand.

India holds the rotating BRICS presidency in 2026, giving New Delhi the platform to shape the agenda of the grouping's sector-specific ministerial and expert forums. The urbanisation forum sits within that broader presidential programme.

Policy Backdrop

India's engagement with urban development on multilateral platforms has deep roots. The country launched the Smart Cities Mission in 2015 and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) to tackle the pressures of fast-growing cities — programmes that successive governments have showcased in forums such as this one.

At the BRICS Summit in Goa in 2016, India had similarly foregrounded infrastructure and sustainable development cooperation. The 2026 presidency continues that tradition, with Khattar, as the minister responsible for Housing and Urban Affairs, serving as the natural face of India's urban-policy diplomacy within the grouping.

BRICS members — which now include an expanded set of partner economies following the 2024 enlargement — have increasingly used sector-specific forums to go beyond the headline summit and generate working-level policy exchanges on financing, digital governance, and affordable housing.

Stakeholders and Impact

Urban local bodies and city planners across BRICS nations stand to benefit most directly from the knowledge-sharing that forums like this facilitate. For India, which is urbanising at a pace that strains municipal infrastructure and housing supply, multilateral platforms offer both validation of domestic schemes and exposure to solutions deployed in peer economies such as Brazil, China, and South Africa.

The forum also feeds into the work of the New Development Bank (NDB), the BRICS-backed multilateral lender that finances urban infrastructure projects across member states. Any joint declarations or working-group mandates emerging from the forum could shape future NDB project pipelines.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to formal outcomes from the forum — including any joint declarations, thematic communiqués, or follow-up working groups on urban policy that India's BRICS presidency may announce. Broader summit-level outcomes under BRICS India 2026 are expected to consolidate the work of these ministerial and expert-level gatherings into a unified presidential agenda. The urbanisation forum's conclusions are likely to feed into discussions on sustainable cities, affordable housing, and climate-resilient urban infrastructure at the main summit.