B’luru Tops Ease of Living Index, Indore Best Municipality

NEW DELHI:
Known as the centre of India’s high-tech industry, Bengaluru has emerged as the top performer among the cities with more than one million population in ease of living category while famous tourist city Shimla ranked the highest in less than one million population.

Bengaluru, which is also famous for its parks and nightlife, is followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore, and Greater Mumbai in the same category measured in the Ease of Living Index (EoLI) 2020. The EoLI is an assessment tool that evaluates the quality of life and the impact of various initiatives for urban development.

In less than one million category, Shimla is followed by Bhubaneswar, Silvassa, Kakinada, Salem, Vellore, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Davangere, and Tiruchirappalli.

The EoLI list provides a comprehensive understanding of participating cities across India based on quality of life, economic ability of a city, and sustainability, spanning across 13 categories which account for 70 per cent of the overall outcome.

Other categories of the index include education, health, housing and shelter, mobility, safety and security, recreation, level of economic development, economic opportunities, environment, green spaces, and buildings, energy consumption, and city resilience.

Similar to the EoLI index, the assessment framework under Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2020 has classified municipalities based on their population — municipalities having over one million population and less than one million population.

Indore has emerged as the highest ranked municipality, followed by Surat and Bhopal with more than one million population. New Delhi Municipal Council has emerged as the leader in less than one million population category, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday announced the release of the final rankings of EoLI, 2020 and the MPI 2020 here on Thursday in an online event.

A total of 111 cities participated in the assessment exercise under the EoLI that was conducted in 2020.

The MPI also examined the sectoral performance of 111 municipalities (with Delhi being assessed separately for NDMC, and the three Municipal Corporations) across five verticals which comprise of 20 sectors and 100 indicators in all totality.

The five verticals under MPI are services, finance, policy, technology and governance. The MPI was launched as an accompaniment to the Ease of Living Index. It seeks to examine local government practice in municipalities across areas of services, finance, policy, technology and governance. It seeks to simplify and evaluate the complexities in local governance practice and promote the ethos of transparency and accountability.

Both the indices represent an attempt to gauge the performance of cities across India on various parameters of urban living.