Context

• As summer intensifies across India, cities are grappling with severe water shortages, surging electricity demand, and escalating temperatures.
• Reports from metropolitan areas like Bengaluru and Hyderabad reveal a sharp increase in water tanker bookings and frequent power cuts driven by heightened air-conditioner usage.
• These annual struggles highlight a pressing question: Are Indian cities prepared to withstand climate extremes and the pressures of rapid urbanisation?

The Complexities of Urban Growth and Limitations of Current Indices

• The Complexities of Urban Growth
  • Urbanisation in India has brought economic opportunities, innovation, and growth.
  • However, it has also exacerbated pollution, congestion, and environmental degradation, disproportionately affecting the underprivileged.
  • According to the Sustainable Futures Collective’s report “Is India Ready for a Warming World?” (2025), Indian cities still have a long way to go in terms of long-term climate planning.
  • Repeated concerns raised in Parliament about the worsening urban heat island effect reinforce the stark realities on the ground.
  • As India aims to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG-11), building inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities by 2030, these issues demand immediate and sustained attention.
• Limitations of Current Indices
  • While global frameworks for measuring SDG-11 progress exist, India lacks robust, city-level tools for effective tracking.
  • NITI Aayog’s SDG Urban Index evaluates 56 cities across 77 indicators, yet its assessment of SDG-11 is limited to just four parameters: Swachh Survekshan (sanitation survey), road accident deaths, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (housing scheme), and waste treatment coverage.
  • Meanwhile, the Ease of Living Index covers 111 cities but does not provide a comprehensive evaluation of SDG-11 dimensions.
  • International indices such as Mercer’s Quality of Living Index and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Resilient Cities Index offer valuable insights but often fail to account for India’s unique urban realities.
  • This absence of a focused, context-sensitive SDG-11 index creates a significant policy-research gap, limiting policymakers' ability to identify which cities are truly safe, sustainable, and inclusive.

A New Approach to Measuring Urban Progress

• To bridge this gap, researchers have developed four distinct indices focusing on the core pillars of SDG-11: safety, inclusivity, resilience, and sustainability.
• Ten major cities, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, and Surat, were ranked using indicators drawn from United Nations urban frameworks.
• Data sources included the Census 2011, Road Transport Yearbook, Indian Forest Survey, National Crime Records Bureau, Periodic Labour Force Survey, National Family Health Survey-5, Reserve Bank of India, India Meteorological Department, and the Ola Mobility Institute’s Ease of Moving Index 2022.
• Employing the Shannon Entropy Weighting Technique from Multi-Criteria Decision-Making modelling, researchers assigned objective weights to the indicators, enhancing the reliability of the indices.
• The findings reveal striking disparities:
  • Inclusivity: Ahmedabad ranked highest, while Jaipur performed the worst.
  • Safety: Bengaluru was found to be the safest city; Kolkata ranked the lowest.
  • Sustainability: Surat led, whereas Kolkata lagged.
  • Resilience: Chennai topped the resilience index; Jaipur ranked last.
• Notably, cities that were deemed front-runners in NITI Aayog’s SDG-11 assessments performed poorly under this new, more rigorous evaluation.

Key Insights and Challenges

• These variations spotlight urgent urban challenges:
  • Inclusivity gaps show deep-rooted disparities in economic and social access, underscoring the need for equitable urban development.
  • Safety rankings highlight inconsistent urban security and law enforcement across cities.
  • Sustainability outcomes point to uneven progress in waste management, environmental planning, and pollution control.
  • Resilience disparities reveal significant deficiencies in disaster preparedness and recovery strategies.
• The Annual Survey of Indian City Systems 2023 by Janaagraha reinforces these concerns, reporting that only 16 cities have a dedicated “city sustainability plan” and only 17 have formal city resilience strategies.
• Such deficits reveal the groundwork still needed for India to achieve meaningful progress toward SDG-11.

The Road Ahead

• City-level Monitoring: Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) must adopt SDG-11 tracking frameworks, similar to the district-level mechanisms established by some states.
• Leveraging Technology: Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs) under the Smart Cities Mission should be utilised for real-time urban data collection to enhance planning and decision-making.
• Addressing Urban Poverty: With one-third of urban residents living in poverty, the reliance on outdated Census 2011 data is inadequate. A Periodic Urban Poor Quality of Living Survey at the state level is urgently needed.
• Localized Governance: Each city’s unique challenges must be addressed through localised, data-driven strategies rather than blanket national policies.

Conclusion

• Building safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Indian cities demands urgent, coordinated action backed by robust data, inclusive governance, and strategic long-term planning.
• Without addressing the multifaceted challenges outlined here, India risks falling short of its 2030 SDG-11 goals, with dire consequences for millions living in its rapidly growing urban centres.