ICLEI South Asia recently completed the process of identifying two pilot wards in Udaipur under the Urban95 Programme. The two wards will be pilot demonstration wards to showcase infant, toddler, caregiver-friendly neighbourhood (ITCN) infrastructure (social and physical) and services in the city.

ICLEI South Asia is the technical partner for UMC and BVLF in the Urban95 programme.

The process of selecting the wards involved a three-tiered, data-based analytical assessment on the basis of socio-economic factors (such as income, assets and availability of social infrastructure like PHCs, anganwadis, playschools, gardens and parks), and physical factors such as whether they had developed organically or in a planned manner.

Other factors that were considered were the location of the wards – one in the walled city (ABD or area-based development area under Smart City Projects) and one in the extended city (Pan city under Smart City Projects) — and the presence (preferably) of under privileged communities. The feedback provided by the city officials and a general understanding of individual wards and their characteristics, such as locations of tourist hotspots and the movement of tourists around them, were also studied. This was done to ensure that the interventions, if any, would benefit the local ITC groups, residents as well as tourists.

A list of 10 indicators was finalised — based on their links and relevance to ITC group — for identifying the pilot wards. The three-tiered, data-based analytical assessment involved the following steps:

a. The available secondary information or data was used to prepare a ward matrix, with a score against each ward that would help to index or rank them.
b. The 10 indicators were finalised on the basis of secondary information or data.
c. As the indicators were in absolute numbers, percentages or ratios etc., a simple scoring method was used to rank or score each indicator using suitable ranges.
d. For ease of calculation, all indicators were scored on a scale of 0-10 (in bandwidths of 2), 10 being the best and 0 being the worst. Individual scores of all the indicators were added and converted into percentages for easy referencing and ranking.
e. The final ranking was based on the percentages derived from the overall score of each indicator, ranging from optimal, high, average, low and poor.
f. A map was prepared, reflecting the final scores of all indicators, making it easy to understand the ward ranks.

Ward 3 (with a high score and a part of the extended city) and wards 10, 11, 12 and 13, besides 14 (as a cluster within the walled city, and with scores ranging from optimal to average) were then identified as potential pilot wards under the Urban95 programme. The identified wards will be studied in detail as sample areas during the course of the project to better understand the status of ITCN indicators at the city level.