Shimla, Coimbatore, Chandigarh top Niti Aayog's first SDG Urban India Index

Shimla, Coimbatore and Chandigarh have topped the Niti Aayog's first Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Urban India Index, while Dhanbad, Meerut and Itanagar are the worst performers, according to a report released by the government think tank on Tuesday.

According to an official statement, the Niti Aayog has developed the SDG Urban index and dashboard in collaboration with GIZ and BMZ under the umbrella of Indo-German Development Cooperation.

Launching the index and dashboard, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said, "Cities are fast becoming engines of growth. The SDG Urban Index and dashboard, a product of innovative partnership between Niti Aayog and GIZ, will go a long way in instituting a robust SDG monitoring system in our cities, and is a milestone step in our SDG localisation journey."

The statement said the index highlights the strengths and gaps of ULB-level data, monitoring, and reporting systems.

"The index and dashboard will further strengthen SDG localisation and institute robust SDG monitoring at the city level," it said.

Top 10 Urban areas in SDG Urban Index and Dashboard 2021-22 are Shimla, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Panaji, Pune, Tiruchirapalli, Ahmedabad and Nagpur.

While, bottom 10 Urban Areas in SDG Urban Index and Dashboard 2021-22 are Dhanbad, Meerut, Itanagar, Guwahati, Patna, Jodhpur, Kohima, Agra, Kolakata and Faridabad. Out of 56 urban areas ranked in the index, 44 are with population of above one million, 12 are state capitals with a population of less than a million.

While for some indicators, 'urban area' implies urban local bodies (ULBs), in other cases, it refers to all urban areas within a district collectively. The data on these indicators have been sourced from official data sources such as NFHS, NCRB, U-DISE, data portals of various ministries, and other government data sources.

According to the government think tank, for each SDG, the urban areas are ranked on a scale of 0-100. A score of 100 implies that the urban area has achieved the targets set for 2030; a score of 0 implies that it is the farthest from achieving the targets among the selected urban areas.

The areas with ranking between 0 and 49 have been ranked as aspirants, those with 50-64 are termed as performers, 65-99 are called front-runners and the ones with perfect score are called achievers. However, not a single area has a perfect score. Launching the index and dashboard, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said that cities are fast becoming engines of growth.