Indian Cities Will Now Be Rated On A Liveability Index

Statistician and professor W Edwards Deming said, “In God we trust. All others must bring data”. Data is what everyone trusts in. For instance, while the government recently said that the employment avenues have gone up, there was no clear statistics to prove it. "The lack of consistent, comprehensive, and current data impedes a serious assessment. New evidence that suggests formal sector employment is substantially greater than hitherto believed," said the Economic Survey 2017-18, tabled by Arun Jaitley in Parliament. As is with jobs, so is the case with liveability in Indian cities. However, now you could be optimistic about the steps being taken. While inaugurating a National Orientation Workshop on Assessment of Liveability Indices for 116 Cities, Minister of State (I/C) for Housing & Urban Affairs, Hardeep Puri talked about the Centre’s plan.

Features of the plan

A set of liveability standards was launched in June 2017. The objective was to generate an index and rate cities as per these standards. Here are the key features:

*The project would involve yearly surveys and compilation of datasets across indicators.

*Through the index, cities can be ranked and thereby these cities can understand their failings or plus points and work towards tangible outcomes.

*The parameters are linked to the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs and have been derived from various national and international indicators or service level benchmarks after consultation with city governments.

*Altogether, there are 79 indicators in 15 distinct categories such as Governance, Health and Education, Safety, Identity and Culture, Economy, Pollution, Mixed Land Use and Compactness, Open Spaces, Urban Mobility and various Core Urban Services.

*A feedback mechanism would be open and it would ensure that the methodology is foolproof and practical.

*As per the previous mandate, while rating a city, the highest weightage of 40 per cent will be given to the physical infrastructure, followed by governance at 30 per cent, the social system at 20 per cent and economic condition at 10 per cent.

Liveability in your city

The concept of this index is not new. It is a practice in the West. In the recent liveability indices released, Indian cities have fared rather poorly. Over the years, liveability is becoming a key determinant that helps you decide whether a particular city assures a quality of life that you are expecting.

Numbeo, a crowdsourced database ranks India with a score of 122.11 on a scale of 200. The purchasing power of people is 78.69 (moderate) while the index suggests that the higher it is, the better could be the rating. A moderate rating of 56.14 is also allotted when it comes to safety in Indian cities although a higher count is better. India garnered an appreciable score for healthcare at 67.53 and climate at 65.82. The cost of index should ideally be low but sadly for India it is very low with a score of 26.95. In terms of property price to income ratio, India fares moderately. A low score is however considered better. Traffic and pollution, however, are the worst at 46.98 and 75.44, respectively. In both these indicators, lower scores are better for the city. Taking all the parameters into consideration as well as its impact, Mangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Gurgaon, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi are amongst the top cities.