GUWAHATI: The Ease of Living Index 2018 released by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri on 14th August has pitted the top cities in India against each other in a bid to assess cities' 'livability' with regards to global and national benchmarks and to encourage these cities towards urban planning and management.
Of total 111 cities ranked under the index, Pune has ranked first with 58.11 points out of 100 while Navi Mumbai has surfaced as the second preferred with a score of 58.02 in terms of 'livability'.
The top 8 cities that follow are Greater Mumbai (57.78), Tirupati (57.52), Chandigarh (53.16), Thane (52.27), Raipur (50.58), Indore (50.16), Vijaywada (49.27) and Bhopal (49.11).
Guwahati has ranked 85 out of the 111 cities with a mere score of 29.03 out of 100 which positions it as one of the poorly performing cities.
Here are the scores attained by Guwahati city:
Reet Sharma (name changed), a resident of Guwahati speaking to G Plus said, “Guwahati is extremely cluttered. There are buildings and projects everywhere. There is no management in place. Waterlogging, traffic, languishing economy and Housing and inclusiveness continue to be a very big challenge, referring to the results published here. No wonder we have performed so poorly in the Ease of Living Index.”
Cities like Navi Mumbai have scored highest in Governance, Faridabad in Education, Chandigarh in Identity, Culture and Economy and Employment indices.
After the ten most livable cities, Karim Nagar (Telangana) has been ranked 11th, followed by Tiruchirappalli, Bilaspur, Chennai, Jabalpur, Amravati, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Surat, Vasai-Virar city, Nashik, Solarpur, Ahmedabad, Ujjain, Coimbatore, Erode, Hyderabad, Madurai, Tiruppur, Jainpur, Nagpur and Gwalior among others.
The Ease of Living Index is fundamentally tied to physical amenities such as water supply, solid waste management, parks and green space etc; for others it relates to cultural offerings, opportunities, economic dynamism or safety. All the cities have been ranked on the basis of four parameters -- institutional, social, economic and physical.
During the survey, the entire data was compiled on a new portal and a monitoring dashboard for a real-time update. Based on over 50,000 points, the government surveyed over 60,000 people, conducted the secondary audit of 10,000 documents, and the physical audit of 14,000 units before finalizing the list.
A government statement said the Ease of Living assessment standards is closely linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, which will provide a strong impetus to India's effort for systematic tracking progress of SDGs in the urban areas.