India and Goal 11 of SDGs Sustainable cities & communities

India has taken various proactive steps to ensure achievement of all the 17 SDGs and a national monitoring system is in position.
Some of the positives about the SDG agenda in general are:

• It is acknowledged that these represent an elaborate agenda for the governments that necessitate achieving progress simultaneously across social, economic and environmental pillars
• India with the world’s 17 percent population holds the key to global SDG achievement
• India’s progress is contingent on the performance of our states and union territories
• States become essential stakeholders because seventy percent more than the central government’s spending happens in the states.

Having said this, it needs to be highlighted that SDG India Index 2018 was the first effort by the Government of India and perhaps anywhere globally to rank sub-national governments by computing the composite index on all SDGs. Now, we also have the Index 2019, which is more refined and comprehensive compared to the first one. The states are now in the process of having SDG aligned vision documents and action plans so as to realize the agenda by 2030. Suitable target value has been set for each indicator.

• For 62 indicators, targets set by the UN at the global level have been adopted
• For 22 indicators, targets set by the Government of India are used
• For 5 indicators benchmarks set by international development organizations or international standards have been adopted
• For remaining 5 indicators (Goal 14) targets have not been set because for most of them their ideal value is not fixed
• From 62 indicators which were taken into account while preparing the SDG India Index 2018, indicators for Index 2019-20 are higher at one hundred.

What it means to have an Index like this
It has helped raise awareness on SDG within government, media, researchers and civil society organisations. In some states, SDG localisation has been pushed to the next level, where district-level monitoring has been initiated.

Ranking states and union territories
There is now a competitive spirit among states as they are ranked every year according to their performance and this gives an opportunity to take stock as to what needs to be done better. Though no state has reached the highest category of’ achievers’, there are 8 states which figure in the next category of ’front runners’ as per the latest Index. Remaining 20 states figure in the next category of ’performers’. The state of Kerala retained its rank as the top state among states whereas Chandigarh tops the list of union territories.

Goal 11- Sustainable cities and communities
Among states and union territories, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Chandigarh top the list with regard to implementation of this goal. What is India’s approach regarding sustainable cities? We all know the urban agenda in India is huge and there are various missions and programs initiated by the central government and the states to take these forward proactively though there are issues regarding capacity, generation of additional resources, time-bound implementation, etc.
The focus areas identified in the context of this goal are:

• Reforms in the real estate sector. A Real Estate Regulator is in position in each of the states which attempts to better serve the home buyer’s interests
• Urban transformation and housing for all. The major program launched by the central government in this regard is that of providing houses to all homeless persons by the year 2022 under the Prime Minister’s Housing Scheme covering 4318 cities and towns. In 500 cities, basic civic amenities like water, sewerage are being provided under another central program, AMRUT
• Sustainable urbanisation – The smart cities mission launched in 2015 aims at building sustainable and inclusive cities. City improvement through retrofitting, city renewal through redevelopment, city extension through greenfield development and bringing in various smart facilities like smart water, smart energy are being undertaken under this Mission covering 100 smart cities.

What are the challenges?
The challenges could be broadly listed as follows:

• Challenge to the institutional capacities for improving access to sound infrastructure
• Being home to 14 out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world underlines the need for effective measures to check this.
• Growing number of urban unemployment is another key issue
• Climate change impacts vulnerability of this
• Integrated and spatially distributed urbanization with emphasis on small and medium towns and cities, with linkages with rural areas is lacking.

How does India target to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal relating to cities
Five national-level indicators have been identified in this regard and these are:

1. Provision of houses to homeless. So far 31% houses stand completed against the target set for cities and towns of the country under the Prime Minister’s Housing Scheme
2. Percentage of urban households living in slums- 55% of urban households are presently in this category
   These two will contribute to the SDG target of ensuring access to all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic SDR and upgradation of slums.
3. Percentage of wards with hundred percent door to door waste collection- 90.9 per cent wards in municipal areas are reported to have 100 per cent door to door waste collection arrangement
4. Processing of waste- 56 per cent of the total waste generated gets processed now with the state of Chhattisgarh topping the list with 84 per cent so far
5. Installed sewage treatment capacity as proportion of sewage generated. This is an area requiring lot of work as the percentage now is poor.

These three will facilitate achieving the SDG target of reducing the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management.