Pune, Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai from Maharashtra were ranked India’s three most liveable cities on the government’s inaugural “Ease of living Index”, while the national capital came in at an unimpressive 65th place out of total 111 cities.
Releasing the index, housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, “This assessment is the first of its kind globally in terms of scale and coverage”, and the ranking marked a shift to a data-driven approach to urban planning and management and would promote healthy competition among cities.
The index allows cities to be ranked on four broad parameters — institutions and governance, social infrastructure (education/health), economic factors and physical infrastructure. The idea is to help the urban bodies to assess how liveable their cities are against global and national benchmarks and encourage them to move towards an ‘outcome-based’ approach to urban planning and management.
Tirupati, Chandigarh, Thane, Raipur, Indore, Vijaywada and Bhopal also made to the top 10. After the 10 most liveable cities, Karim Nagar (Telangana) was ranked 11th, followed by Tiruchirappalli, Bilaspur, Chennai, Jabalpur, Amravati, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Surat, Vasai-Virar, Nashik, Solapur, Ahmedabad, Ujjain, Coimbatore, Erode, Hyderabad, Madurai, Tiruppur, Jainpur, Nagpur and Gwalior, among others.
Rampur in Uttar Pradesh figured at the bottom of the index, while the other laggards in the bottom 10 were Kohima, Patna, Bihar Sharif, Bhagalpur, Itanagar, Pasighat, Kavaratti, Saharanpur and Silvassa.
On governance, Navi Mumbai, Tirupati, and Karim Nagar were the top three cities, while Chandigarh, Ajmer, and Kota fared well in terms of economic yardsticks. On the social infrastructure category, Tirupati topped, followed by Tiruchirappalli and Navi Mumbai. Greater Mumbai, Pune and Thane secured the top three spots in the physical infrastructure category. Among the metros, Kolkata did not participate in the survey.
The Ease of Living assessment standards are closely linked to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and will provide a strong impetus to India’s effort for systematic tracking progress of SDGs in urban areas.
The relevant index is based on 15 parameters including governance, economy and employment, health, education, power and water supply, transportation and mobility, and housing and inclusiveness. The survey based on the index will now be done annually.
