Shimla tops India’s SDGs list, Dhanbad comes last in NITI Aayog’s first SDGs Urban Index

The hilly city of Shimla has topped NITI Aayog’s first Sustainable Development Goals Urban Index, while Dhanbad, Jharkhand, stood at the bottom of the index. Among big cities, Delhi ranked at 20, Mumbai at 33, Bengaluru at 11 and Chennai at 13 positions. Kolkata ranked among the bottom ten.

The index and dashboard are the results of the collaborative efforts of NITI Aayog-GIZ and BMZ, under the Indo-German Development Cooperation, which assessed 56 cities on 77 SDG indicators across 46 targets of the SDG framework. It is the Centre’s initiative to localise SDGs and ensure progress at the national, state, Union territory and local levels. The list is based on cities’ performance in categories such as poverty, health, education, gender equality, affordable and clean energy and climate action.

“Cities are fast becoming engines of growth. The SDG Urban index and dashboard 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,” said Rajiv Kumar, VP, NITI Aayog.

Top 10 cities on the SDG Urban Index:

1. Shimla
2. Coimbatore
3. Chandigarh
4. Thiruvananthapuram
5. Kochi
6. Panaji
7. Pune
8. Tiruchirapalli
9. Ahmedabad
10. Nagpur

Bottom 10 cities on the SDG Urban Index:

1. Faridabad
2. Kolkata
3. Agra
4. Kohima
5. Jodhpur
6. Patna
7. Guwahati
8. Itanagar
9. Meerut
10. Dhanbad