CHENNAI: In what is probably a first of its kind effort to rank urban India, NITI Aayog, the policy think-tank of the union government, is planning to bring out an ‘Urban Transformation Index’ (UTI) for 500 cities in the country with population of over 1 lakh.
The most popular index worldwide to gauge development and functioning of cities is the one by UN Habitat, a wing of the United Nations.
On similar lines, NITI Aayog is planning to design an index to rank Indian cities on three criteria like infrastructure, quality of services and living conditions.
NITI Aayog has prepared a conceptual framework and circulated it among the state governments for feedback and suggestions. Referring to the 2015 Chennai floods, the concept note said how massive unplanned urbanisation could increase the vulnerability of urban areas to natural disasters.