BHUBANESWAR: Smart City Bhubaneswar has been ranked fourth among the top 10 liveable Capital cities in the country.
Bengaluru tops the list followed by Chennai, Shimla and Bhubaneswar in the Ease of Living Index Report-2020 released by New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) recently.
As per the report, the Smart City has scored 59.85 in the index. Bengaluru, Chennai and Shimla have been placed above Bhubaneswar with a score of 66.7, 62.61 and 60.9 respectively. Bhubaneswar, however, has put cities like Mumbai (58.23) and Delhi (57.56) behind in the ranking.
Four parameters such as quality of life, economic ability, sustainability and citizens’ perceptions were used to determine the score in the index. The cities were given scores on all four parameters out of 100. The index, however, did not rank four Capital cities - Dispur, Daman, Amaravati and Kolkata - in the survey.
Officials of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) said the State Capital has been ranked one in the citizens’ perception category with the highest score of 94.8. BSCL in collaboration with BMC and BDA had carried out an extensive campaign in February 2020 to increase public participation in the survey.
The index promotes healthy competition through rankings and incentivizes them to improve further and even emulate the best practices from their peer cities. “Our efforts will continue to provide better living standards to all our citizens and improve city’s performance in the index further to project Bhubaneswar as the best Capital city both at the national and global level,’’ said BMC Commissioner and BSCL CEO Sanjay Kumar Singh. The index scores will help the authorities assess its level of development and identify existing gaps that obstruct city’s growth, they said.