Indian metro cities, Mumbai and Delhi have been ranked at 18 and 20 respectively, in terms of deployment of information and communication (ICT) solutions, a study by telecom equipment maker Ericsson said.

The Networked Society City Index prepared by Ericsson that analyses 25 cities around the world, site that these cities are also better equipped for the transformation required to meet a growth agenda that better balances increasing demands for sustainability and new lifestyle requirements.

"ICT is becoming an increasingly important way to meet and mitigate challenges like environmental management, public security, healthcare quality and education.

Cities with high levels of ICT infrastructure and usage are better able to realise triple-bottom-line benefits (social, economic and environmental) than cities with lower levels," the study said.

While, Singapore and Stockholm are the top two networked cities globally, however Karachi and Lagos are the least networked cities. Indian cities Mumbai and New Delhi ranked 18 and 20, respectively.

The Networked Society City Index is a tool that can help city authorities and decision-makers monitor the position and progress of cities along the ICT development curve, the study said.

Cities such as Tokyo and Moscow or Delhi and S?o Paulo show strong similarities in terms of the effort put into ICT, while the output in terms of triple-bottom-line leverage varies significantly.

"Strong performers have typically built progress around the ability of people to use ICT. As maturity has increased, the stronger cities have gradually applied a more focused approach by targeting dedicate application areas such as health, education or intelligent traffic," the study said.

The study suggested that while high-scoring cities such as Singapore, Stockholm and Seoul can gain traction by exploiting ICT to fulfill the overall city vision, medium-scoring cities such as Beijing and S?o Paulo need to cherry-pick key city challenges that can be addressed with ICT-based solutions and launch coordinate focused initiatives.

"Low-scoring cities such as Manila, Johannesburg, Dhaka and Karachi can make progress by addressing the digital gap through digital access initiatives, ICT literacy training for the underprivileged and ensuring the integration of ICT into public administration to improve efficiency," it added.