The Steel City has been certified for ISO 37120 by World Council on City Data (WCCD). The city is one of the three cities in India along with Pune and Surat to receive the tag.
This new International standard has been extensively tested in 255 cities across 82 countries with certification granted to only 46 cities across the world and now 3 cities in India. Though 12 cities were initially identified for this purpose in India, only three– Pune, Surat and Jamshedpur fulfilled the required criteria for this prestigious certification.
Sunil Bhaskaran, vice president corporate services, Tata Steel and Ashish Mathur, managing director, JUSCO received the ISO 37120 Certification for Jamshedpur by Sudhir Mungantiwar, Minister of Finance, Planning and Forest Departments, Government of Maharastra on January 20 in Mumbai. Ratan Tata, Interim Chairman, Tata Sons limited (till February 20, 2017) and chairman, Tata Trusts was present at this historic moment of pride for Jamshedpur.
“ISO 37120 defines a comprehensive set of 100 indicators out of which 46 are core across 17 themes that enable any city of any size to measure and compare its social, economic and environmental performance in relation to other cities from around the world. All cities in the Global City Registry have provided 3rd party verified data to the WCCD open data portal, allowing the city to city comparisons, cutting edge visualizations and customize trend analyses. We had applied for the certification around five months back and informed about the certification earlier this year and received the certification on January 20 at Mumbai,” said senior deputy general manager, corporate relations and corporate communications, Jusco, A. P Singh. Pune was given platinum rating while Jamshedpur and Surat were given gold rating.
“We can get benefits from becoming WCCD city and promote effective governance and efficient service delivery. It provides a framework for sustainability and resilience planning and help us in evaluating the impact of infrastructural investment on the overall performance of a city and also enable local and international benchmarking using innovative tools. It will also foster comparative learning and sharing of experience across cities,” added Singh.
Incidentally, ISO 37120 certification given by WCCD, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, a global leader on standardized metrics, was published in May 2014 by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). The standard is based on a set of indicators that was developed and extensively tested by the Global City Indicators Facility (the WCCD’s singer organization) and its more than 250 member cities worldwide.
So far, the certification has been granted to only 46 cities across the world and only three in India.