CHENNAI: After its smart city plan, the Union Government is mooting a plan to rank the cities in the country, based on the quality of life, to inculcate a sense of competitiveness among the cities.
It is learnt that the Union Urban Development Ministry is planning to introduce a “liveability index” for the cities and a detailed framework for the index has been developed in consultation with state governments, sector experts and public consultations through the MyGov portal. As Express first reported on March 19, the Union government’s planning think-tank NITI Aayog is also in the process of formulating an “urban transformation index” for cities across the country.
According to the sources privy to the framework developed by the Union Ministry, the index is being developed based on four main spheres of urban life - institutional, social, economic and physical. Each of the spheres will be given different weightage in computing the index.
While the institutional sphere, which mainly deals with the governance, would be given a weightage of 30 per cent, the social component would be given a weightage of 20 per cent. The economic index will be given 5 pc weightage. However, it is the physical index which has components like water, energy, waste water treatment, solid waste treatment, housing index, open space index, mobility index and pollution index will be given a weightage of 45 per cent.
The idea behind ranking the cities was to facilitate a competitive environment amongst the cities. The ministry believes this will result in systematic improvement in the quality of life of the citizens.
The urban transformation index being framed by the NITI Aayog will cover 500 cities with population of more than one lakh for effective urban policy intervention.