While SDG 11 focuses on making sustainable cities and communities, one of its targets that address urban governance and participatory planning is SDG 11.3 and it talks about enhancing capacity for inclusive, sustainable and integrated participatory planning and management. In this light, the focus goes to the ongoing UN Habitat survey being undertaken towards civic and community participation in the urban planning processes under the title ‘How is civic engagement in your city?’ and focuses on participatory processes of planning from being eliminated from the SDG Global Database due to lack of data. And the questions that figure in the survey are if civil society is allowed and encouraged to participate in the urban planning process regularly and directly; if civil society is allowed to participate democratically with equal representation; whether the governance structure promotes participation of different groups; etc. In this background, the paper tries to locate the localization of SDG 11.3 in India and attempts to explore the potential of urban heritage management, i.e., SDG 11.4 as a tool for the achievement of SDG Target 11.3. The methodology used is three-pillar strategy that ensured a systematic, qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of primary and secondary sources keeping India as a scope of research. This paper is part of an ongoing research and therefore has its limitations. The paper recommends that while the process of public participation needs to be improved, heritage management as a tool for public participation needs to be explored further and an indigenous system of heritage management based on the Indian traditional knowledge system needs to be arrived at.