New Delhi: Bengaluru and Shimla are among the top cities in India as far as ease of living is concerned, while Indore and New Delhi Municipal Council are the best municipalities, according to a report released by Housing & Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri Wednesday.
A total of 111 cities under two categories — those with a population of over one million and others having less than a million — were evaluated to come up with the Ease of Living Index and the Municipality Performance Index 2020.
For the Ease of Living Index, cities were evaluated on the basis of 49 development indicators under three pillars — quality of life, economic-ability and sustainability — and a fourth pillar, which is the citizens’ perception of the basic services availed by them.
Among the million-plus cities, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore and Greater Mumbai emerged as the other top performers in the Ease of Living Index 2020.
Among cities with less then one million population, Shimla topped the chart, followed by Bhubaneshwar, Silvassa, Kakinada, Salem, Vellore, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Davangere, and Tiruchirappalli.
The Ease of Living Index assesses the quality of life and the impact of various initiatives for urban development. “The ranking system harnesses the idea of competitiveness to propel cities into performing better with the aim to climb higher on the rankings,” Puri said after releasing the report.
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Municipal performance index
Puri also announced India’s first-ever Municipality Performance Index (MPI). The MPI assessed local government practices in 111 municipalities (with Delhi being assessed separately for New Delhi Municipal Council and the three municipal corporations) across areas of services, finance, policy, technology and governance.
“It seeks to simplify and evaluate the complexities in local governance practices and promote the ethos of transparency and accountability,” the report stated.
In the million-plus category, Indore emerged as the highest-ranked municipality, followed by Surat and Bhopal. And in the less than million category, New Delhi Municipal Council emerged as the leader, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.
Puri also said that the MPI focuses on municipalities since their operations and functioning directly determine the development trajectory of cities.
“They are the critical enablers in improving citizens’ quality of life and bringing development to the grassroots. The MPI will especially come in handy to the city administrations in identifying the gaps in their functioning,” Puri said.
He added that since the 74th Amendment Act 1992 has designated urban local bodies as the third tier of government, to enforce greater decentralisation, an assessment of the municipal bodies will also give a glimpse into whether the states have been able to effectively incorporate decentralisation in their governance structures or not.
“The MPI will strengthen democracy and participatory governance by allowing citizens, civil society and other key stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of the functioning of their local government bodies, and hold the officials accountable,” Puri said.
The assessment was conducted from 16 January 2020 till 20 March 2020. A total of 32.2 lakh citizens from 111 cities participated in the survey.
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TS Darbari – Most of the experts are always skeptical about the data and the methodology. The reason behind that is the quality of municipal data in India is poor and many cities struggle to provide credible data on any parameter. Hence, such exercises should be preceded by building a robust data culture. However, one has to remember in this context that data submitted by urban local bodies was in addition to secondary auditing of public documents, physical audits carried out in cities, and a survey that preceded the finalization of rankings. Who is TS Darbari? –
TS Darbari is a top management professional, with several years of rich & diversified experience in Corporate Strategy, New Business Development, Sales & Marketing, Commercial Operations, Project Management, Financial Management and Strategic Alliances.
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