Delhi and Mumbai figure among 95 world cities identified by the United Nations as those moving towards prosperity, but the two Indian metropolis are just "half-way" to achieving it with the reasons being poor infrastructure and environment conditions among others.

The report places Delhi at 58th and Mumbai at the 52nd position among the world cities, though two Chinese cities -- Shanghai and Beijing -- figure much above.

"Two Indian cities come under the Group 4 and they are in the medium level (of prosperity). Prosperity is not just the economic prosperity, but the kind of infrastructure and the quality of life in the city. Both the cities have been penalised for poor environment conditions, especially New Delhi," said Edvardo Lopez Moreno, chief researcher of the report.

The UN said the two Indian cities are "half-way to prosperity" and stressed "political and technical" interference to relatively improve conditions in both cities.

'State of the World's Cities' report by the UN Habitat analyses the prosperity of the cities on various counts like productivity, quality of life, infrastructure, environment and equity and on all these five categories, the Indian cities are rated just above Dhaka, Kathmandu and Kampala.

However, the report also praises the IT revolution that Bangalore has been able to achieve and calls Hyderabad as the pharmaceutical capital of India.

Austrian capital Vienna tops the list of 95 cities, followed by New York, Toronto, London and Stockholm. While Mumbai has been given an overall rating of 0.694, Delhi received 0.635 followed closely by Dhaka (0.633) and Kathmandu (0.598).

"Asian cities have strongly invested in infrastructure development in the last few decades, achieving nearly universal provision of water, electricity and mobile telephone services," it said.

The report also mentions India's Golden Quadrilateral motorway to connect the country's largest cities - Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

"In emerging economies like Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and the Russian Federation, fact cities must realise that equity has a significant impact on economic performance, since the greater the degree of equity, the greater the chances of a fuller, more efficient use of available resources, including skills and creative talent," the report said.

The lowest levels of infrastructure provision are to be found in urban Africa (average water and sanitation coverage is 89 and 69 per cent respectively; electricity: 69 per cent; paved roads: 28 per cent; fixed telephone lines: 4 per cent; mobile telephones 57 per cent and and Internet connectivity: and 10 per cent).