KOCHI: Kerala, which has constantly topped many social indices such as Social Progress Indices (SPI), Public Affairs Index 2018 and Niti Ayyog’s Health Index over the years, received a rude shock when it fared poorly in the first Ease of Living Index released by the Union Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs. Out of 111 participant cities, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram were ranked 45 and 71, respectively. According to the report, the ranking was based on a framework comprising four pillars, which were further broken down into 15 categories.
The four pillars include institutional (governance), social (identity, education, health, security), economic (economy, employment) and physical factors (waste water and solid waste management, pollution, housing/ inclusiveness, mixed land use, power and water supply, transport, public open spaces). The segment-wise ranking cuts a sorry figure for the state with Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram ranked 74 and 101 in health, 105 and 99 in safety and security, and 67 and 94 in economy and employ m e n t , respectively. To collect data, the ministry set up a data entry portal and a monitoring dashboard for a realtime update on progress.
Participating cities submitted data on more than 50,000 points. Secondary audit of 10,000 documents, a physical audit of 14,000 units and a survey of more than 60,000 citizens were carried out before finalising the index. But Kochi Mayor Soumini Jain said the Corporation is yet to figure out how the data was collected for the survey. “Like in any major city, we are witnessing rapid expansion in Kochi. But we have always emphasised on a sustainable model of development to minimise the damage to environment and people,” she said. “Incomplete or unauthentic data can always show skewed results. We will definitely work on this, fix gaps to achieve better ratings going forward,” she added. Shiv Das Meena, joint secretary, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, which released the survey said the results are dependent on the data provided by the individual cities and can’t be considered a fool-proof indicator of the ground-level situation.
“We expect the index will help cities evaluate on how to improve their scores by providing relevant data on time and improve upon the various parameters in the coming years,” he said. “It’s quite surprising how a city like Kochi has fared so poorly in departments such as health, safety & security and education. It’s an eye-opener. The authorities should sit up and take notice on how the whole process was conducted and going forward work on improving the ranking of our cities,” said B Gopakumar, president, Better Kochi Response Group. In Kerala majority of the crimes are reported. This can have an impact on crime rates compared to states where crime report rates are low.