Hyderabad, Jan. 7 -- For a country that considers tall buildings with glass frontages, a few wide roads and claims of city governance as "development," the wake-up call comes from two premier cities: Madhya Pradesh's second-largest urban space, Indore, and Gandhinagar, Gujarat's capital. Indore has declared an epidemic of water-borne disease in one part, Bhagirath, and Gandhinagar has reported a high number of typhoid cases, also due to contaminated drinking water supply, in some sectors.

These are the premier cities of their respective states. Indore is Madhya Pradesh's largest city, winner of the "clean city award" for the eighth consecutive year. Gandhinagar is where Prime Minister Narendra Modi ran the state for a dozen years as Chie...