6 years, 11 months ago

Now, standardized data to help rate performance of cities

New Delhi: India’s cities are notoriously non-transparent. “We signed up to be part of the global ISO standard since we are anyway collecting all this data on livability,” said Raj Cherubal, chief executive officer of Chennai Smart City Ltd. “Given the current level of inequality in our cities, how do we know what citizens want? Among the five cities, Ahmedabad is at the most advanced stage to acquire an ISO rating, said Matthew Lynch, vice president of World Council on City Data, which administers the global standard. “It is a huge positive step that a few cities are finally collecting and publishing data,” said Srikanth Viswanathan, chief executive of urban governance watchdog Janaagraha. “These initial efforts must be backed by enabling changes in the municipal corporation act itself, on how India’s cities would collect, manage and publish data,” he added.

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