Road crashes, fires, death by suicide: Crime bureau data reflects India’s urban crisis

The deadly fire that swept through a building housing a coaching centre in Lucknow on June 22, leaving 15 students dead exposed urban India’s familiar failings – unchecked violations of building regulations and a governance system that reacts only after lives are lost.

The fire put the focus on a paradox. India’s policymakers present urbanisation as a pathway to development. Yet Indian cities are in a state of heightened crisis.

The National Crime Records Bureau report on Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2024, released in May, recorded 69,378 accidental deaths that year in 53 “mega cities” – with a population of 10 lakh or more.

The dominant model of city-making prioritises jobless growth, construction for real estate and quicker spatial mobility but ignores safety, social inclusion and public health. Its consequences are visible in accident statistics: deaths from fires, climate-related vulnerabilities, and suicides.

Deadly roads

The rate of accidental deaths in India’s “mega cities” stood at 43.2 per lakh people, significantly higher than the all-India rate of 33.3 per lakh.

Most of these deaths were caused by vehicular crashes, said the report: the 53 mega cities recorded 73,426 traffic crashes, 63,519 injuries and 17,797 deaths. Of these road accidents, 40.3% occurred in urban areas. Nearly one-third of these took place in or near residential areas.

These traffic deaths are symptoms of a development model that places the movement of cars above human life. The most vulnerable victims were two-wheeler drivers and pedestrians. Pedestrian deaths are poorly documented and analysed, even though most Indians get around by walking in cities.

Delhi recorded the highest number of traffic fatalities among Indian cities, followed by Jaipur and Bengaluru. Of these incidents, 52.8% were due to speeding, 30.1% to dangerous driving and only 2.6% to drunk driving.

Beyond the roads, more than 25,000 accidents occurred on the railway tracks and railway premises in 2024 leading to over 22,000 deaths.

Most were caused by people falling from trains or being hit by trains as they crossed the tracks. These numbers indicate failures in transport planning and safety systems.

The Lucknow coaching centre fire highlights another major urban risk: unsafe buildings. In 2024, India recorded 5,888 deaths from 5,971 fire accidents. More than 60% of all fire accident deaths occurred in residential and dwelling units.

Such deaths are often the result of illegal construction, poor maintenance and overcrowding, inadequate fire safety measures, blocked exits and weak enforcement of building regulations. In such an urban landscape, even a small spark can easily become a mass casualty event.

Suicide and distress

If accidental deaths point to the failure of physical infrastructure, the death by suicide rates in the report reveal the social and economic distress of urban life. According to the data, the suicide rate in cities was 16.3 per lakh population in 2024, significantly higher than the national average of 12.2.

The 53 mega cities accounted for 26,150 of the deaths suicide of the total 170,746 reported in India. Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai together accounted for nearly one-third of all such deaths.

The largest category among those who died by suicide were daily-wage earners followed by self-employed people, salaried employees, unemployed people and students.

Cities offer opportunities to millions of workers and migrants but with insecurity, unstable employment, rising costs of living, debt and poor social protection. Suicides among workers and the economically vulnerable are a mental health concern but also linked to urban development.

Climate vulnerability

One area in which the report offers only a partial picture is climate-related mortality. Deaths from heatstroke, cold exposure, floods, lightning and other environmental causes are listed in the report under “forces of nature”. In 2024, there were 917 such deaths in mega cities. The main causes were heatstroke and exposure to cold.

But this framing is inadequate. Heat deaths are notoriously underreported. Besides, the report does not account for pollution-related deaths.

Climate-related deaths are heavily shaped by planning decisions, housing conditions, access to services and socio-economic inequalities. Such vulnerabilities are likely to increase as climate change accelerates.

The term “forces of nature” that the report holds responsible for these deaths obscures the role of faulty governance, planning and public policy. These deaths are as much failures of human systems as of environmental events.

Much of the policy debate on urbanisation focuses on governance failures, infrastructure deficits or economic competitiveness. These concerns are well-founded, but they mask a more fundamental reality: urban Indians are dying at an alarming rate because of the way cities are conceived, governed and managed.

To address this crisis of urbanisation, India needs a different urban agenda. Cities should put safety ahead of speed, de-prioritise cars and invest in public transport, with public walking infrastructure, cycling networks and traffic calming through street design and regulation that slows vehicles and improves safety.

Building safety regulations must be strictly enforced. In the short term, regulations must also address the majority of informal settlements rather than blanket labeling them as illegal.

In the long term, adequate housing for those who live in informal settlements must be prioritised. Urban policy must build climate resilience with heat action plans, cooling infrastructure, urban greenery and improved environmental monitoring systems.

At the same time, cities must confront the social and economic drivers of suicide by creating jobs, strengthening labour protections, ensuring affordable housing, expanding accessible mental health and public health services.

The Lucknow fire is a reminder that these 15 deaths were preventable. But prevention requires confronting the magnitude of the problem. India owes its urban residents a deeper examination of how our cities function and who they fail to protect.

Aravind Unni is an urban practitioner and policy researcher working on inclusive cities, urban climate justice, informality, and urban development in India.

Kuldeepsingh Rajput leads the Rubal Foundation and works on workers’ rights, migration, social protection, community leadership, and grassroots urban inclusion.