NEW DELHI: Pune has been ranked as India’s most livable place on the government’s inaugural ‘Ease of Living Index’. The city is followed by Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai, also in Maharashtra. The Ministry of Urban Affairs launched the livability index, in which Delhi is placed at the 65th position among 111 cities in the country. Rampur of Utter Pradesh was at the bottom of the ranking of livability. The capital cities of BJP-ruled and poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh made it to the top 10 list. Bhopal was ranked 10th, while Raipur was placed at the seventh spot. Another city from Madhya Pradesh, Indore, was ranked eighth on the list.
So far as scoring is concerned, even Pune could score only 58.11 points, followed by Navi Mumbai with 58.02 points.Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the Ease of Living Index was based mainly on four parameters — governance, social institutions, and economic and physical infrastructure. “The responsibility of the state is not only to deliver goods and services to citizens, but also to ensure the ‘ease of living…. This will now be an annual litmus test to assess the progress being made under various urban development schemes.”
The minister said the assessment standards evolved by the ministry were closely linked to sustainable development goals. Tirupati got the fourth spot in the ranking and Chennai was ranked 14th. Bhagalpur, Biharsharif, Patna, Kohima and Rampur were made up the bottom five cities.The minister said that the Ease of Living Index was an initiative to help cities assess their livability vis-à-vis global and national benchmarks and encourage cities to move towards an ‘outcome-based’ approach to urban planning and management. Officials said that the Ease of Living assessment standards were closely linked to the Sustainable Development Goals.