Figure 4: No Copyright Infringement Intended

Context:

• first Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Urban Index has been released by Niti Aayog, the country’s economic think-tank. 

Finding:

• Bengaluru is the best and only city in the country that is providing decent jobs and ensuring economic growth.
• Shimla is ensuring sustainable development, as it has topped the index based on 15 parameters.  

Scoring:

The maximum score a city can achieve is 100.

• A score between 65 and 99 categorises a city as a ‘front-runner’,
• cities scoring between 50-64 were called ‘performers’,
• those scoring below 50 were considered ‘aspirants’.

About the Index:

• The SDG Urban Index and Dashboard ranks 56 urban areason 77 SDG indicators across 46 targets of the SDG framework.
• 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.
• SDG 14 (life below water) has not been included as it is relevant for only coastal areas, which are only a few of the selected cities,
• SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals) has been excluded as the progress of its targets are monitored at the national level.

Benefits:

• The index and dashboard will further strengthen SDG localization and institute robust SDG monitoring at the city level.
• It highlights the strengths and gaps of ULB-level data, monitoring, and reporting systems.
• It 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.
• It seeks to empower local administrations to adopt a measurement-based approach to decision making.