Where Is Your City In The Ease Of Living Index?

Isn’t there always a kind of excitement when it comes to acknowledge where your place of living stands in several indexes brought out by the government, every year? Well, the Central Government of India took out its annual The Ease of Living Index 2020 on Thursday, March 4^th 2021, portraying which big and small cities of the state are easily livable and which are not.

According to the government, ‘The Ease of Living Index’ is an assessment tool that evaluates the quality of life and the impact of various initiatives for urban development. For the survey, a total of 32.2 lakh people residing across 111 cities participated in a ‘Citizen Perception Survey’ holding a weightage of 30 per cent. The performance of the cities was measured on four broad parameters – governance, social, physical and economic infrastructure.

Out of the 49 cities ranked on livability index in the ‘million-plus population’ category, Bengaluru has been adjudged the most livable followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore and Greater Mumbai, while Srinagar landed on the last spot. The capital city of India – Delhi, landed on the 13^th spot. 

Furthermore, out of the 62 cities ranked in the ‘less than one million population’ category, Shimla sat on the topmost rank followed by Bhubaneshwar, Silvassa, and Kakinada, while Muzzaffarpur grabbed the lowest spot. The capital falls on the 16^th rank overall across both categories.

The ranking was prepared by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and was released by Minister Hardeep Puri. It was scored on well-being on quality of life, economic ability, and sustainability with 49 indicators spread across 14 categories.

New Delhi Municipal Council topped the ”Municipal Performance Index” in the ”less than a million” population category. The rest are Triputi, Gandhinagar, Karnal, Salem, Tiruppur, Bilaspur, Udaipur, Jhansi and Tirunelveli, while Indore topped the ”Municipal Performance Index” in the million-plus population category followed by Surat, Bhopal, Pimpri Chinchawad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Raipur, Greater Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Vadodara.

It is quite notable that the cities with the best scores were predominantly from the southern and western regions, while the worst performers were mostly from the eastern and northern regions.