NEW DELHI, July 1 -- If someone were to ask which among Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad is the richest city, it would be hard to say. This information gap is precisely what the government is setting out to fill.

The ministry of housing and urban affairs has set up an inter-ministerial committee to develop a standardized methodology to estimate the economic output of Indian cities, a first for the country, according to two people aware of the development.

Work has started on devising ways to calculate the City Economic Product (CEP), or the gross domestic product, of cities. The National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), which helps frame policies and interventions to achieve the vision of Viksit Bharat (Developed India) by 2047, is le...