They Measured India’s Cities for Climate Readiness, Got 34%, and Then Stopped Counting

In 2019 the government began rating Indian cities under the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework — 28 indicators across five themes, starting with a baseline of 96 cities. In 2021, 126 large cities returned a national average climate readiness of just 30%. By 2023, with 226 cities assessed, the average had crawled to 34%, and exactly one city, Surat, moved up a star. Any honest government would have read that as an emergency. This one shut the exercise down. There has been no CSCAF 4.0, and India now has no current public data on how ready its cities are for the heat, floods and water collapse already at the door — while 21 major cities including Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad head towards complete groundwater depletion threatening 100 million people, and 5,700 km of our 7,500 km coastline lies exposed to cyclones and flooding. You stop counting when the numbers indict you.

🔗 Source: https://india.mongabay.com/2026/08/india-started-measuring-climate-readiness-of-cities-then-stalled-commentary/