Srikanth practises ‘city-systems’ reforms and champions the application of systems thinking to urban reform agendas. He works closely with the senior leadership in union and state governments and constitutional bodies, such as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Finance Commission of India, to shape and implement long-term reforms to city-systems in India.

An Associate member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for over twenty years, Srikanth worked in banking and audit before joining team Jana in 2011. 

Her work focuses on land, planning, and urban design within the broader domain of urban governance, across Jana Urban Space Foundation and its sibling organisation, Janaagraha. Her work spans urban policy research, thought leadership, and systemic policy engagements.

She headed the Municipal Law and Policy Program at Janaagraha, where she anchored the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS), India’s flagship report on urban governance, and its associated reform engagements with state and city governments. She also seeded the City Leaders Program to strengthen the leadership of women councillors. She has led collaborations with institutions such as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Principal Accountant General – Karnataka, designing the audit matrix for India’s first-ever performance audit on the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. This work was scaled across 18 states and synthesized into a national Compendium.  Vachana was instrumental in the CITIIS 2.0 consortium under the Smart Cities Mission of the Government of India and contributed to the landscape study on India’s municipal finance commissioned by the 15th Finance Commission of India. She has also contributed to the Urban Vision Document 2030, developed by NITI Aayog, and to the Economic Survey of the Government of India for 2016-17, and has worked with legislators such as Dr Shashi Tharoor.

She teaches, trains, writes, and speaks regularly on urban planning and governance. Vachana holds a Master’s degree in Development (Public Policy) from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru; a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Teresa’s College, Ernakulam (Mahatma Gandhi University); and a Certificate in Policy and Leadership Development from the Møller Institute, University of Cambridge. In 2021, she represented India in the British Council’s Future Leaders Connect programme.

In her leisure time, Vachana enjoys tending to her plants, reading, taking leisurely strolls, and listening to melodies, particularly Hindustani and Sufi music.

She leads the organisation’s work on street and public realm design, supporting large-scale urban street transformation programmes with a focus on walkability, safety, accessibility, and high-quality everyday public space in dense urban contexts.

At Jana Urban Space Foundation, Usha has played a key role in the Bengaluru Smart City Programme, contributing to the design and delivery of multiple street redevelopment and public realm projects. A distinctive strength of her practice lies in integrating underground utility planning into street design, enabling coordinated service layouts, reducing implementation risks, and ensuring long-term functionality alongside improved public space outcomes. 

 Beyond Bengaluru, Usha has led and supported major initiatives such as the Chennai Mega Streets programme and the Reimagining Streets of Meghalaya initiative. In Chennai, she supported the city’s transition to a network-based street design approach. In Meghalaya, she contributed to redesigning key junctions and critical street sections identified as congestion and safety hotspots, focusing on improved traffic performance while prioritising pedestrians. Her work has included the design of continuous footpaths, improved junction geometry, organised on-street functions, and the integration of green cover and public amenities. She has also supported the planning of integrated public space precincts in Shillong’s city centre, strengthening pedestrian connectivity by aligning street design with adjacent parks and heritage areas. 

A significant component of Usha’s role includes capacity building and technical support for government engineers and urban practitioners. She has contributed to training programmes, design reviews, and on-site technical assistance—including the National Complete Streets Workshop, where she supported training of over 150 engineers and officials under the Sustainable Urban Mobility – Air Quality, Climate Action, Accessibility (SUM-ACA) project, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and GIZ India.  

In her leisure time, Usha enjoys cooking, tending to her plants, and reading.