In June 2015, the Government of India approved a national housing program called the Prime Minster’s Awas Yojana (PMAY; Prime Minister’s Housing Plan), the latest in a series of ‘urban missions’ that have seen the urban emerge as an object for policy intervention in a country long rurally imagined. The emergence of these missions has necessitated the construction of a new urban grammar. Concepts, categories and classifications have sought to define, delineate and measure different aspects of the urban landscape so that different modes of practice and intervention may emerge.