The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially the goal of making cities safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable (SDG-11) firmly places urbanization at the forefront of the national development policy of India. This recognition goes beyond viewing urbanization only as a demographic phenomenon, but rather as a transformative process capable of galvanizing momentum for the holistic development of the country. Cities play an important role in driving global change by adopting a bottom up approach. Cities also have a unique capacity to implement and monitor SDGs at the local level. However, the role of cities in the achievement of national goals goes far beyond SDG 11. All the SDGs have targets that are directly or indirectly related to the cities. At this juncture, local governments need to realize that they are not mere implementers of the SDGs. Instead, they are catalysts of change with the ability to link the global goals with local communities. Examples of localization of SDGs are emerging in different cities across the world. Their experiences offer valuable lessons for wider dissemination for other cities. India is less than a decade away from the global timeline of achievement of SDGs. It is very timely to document these lessons as most of the cities lack institutional mechanism; capacities to implement and monitor SDGs and use appropriate methods to localize them in their respective geographies.