BENGALURU HAS been named the most livable city in India, followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Surat, according to the government’s ease of living index released Thursday.
Of the 49 cities ranked in the livability index in the category of more than one million inhabitants, Delhi is ranked 13. At the bottom of the list are Amritsar, Guwahati, Bareilly, Dhanbad and Srinagar.
According to the index, published by the Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri, Shimla topped the category of cities with a population of less than one million. They are followed by Bhubaneswar, Silvassa, Kakinada and Salem. At the bottom of the list of 62 cities are Aligarh, Rampur, Namchi, Satna and Muzaffarpur.
The Ease of Living Index, according to the government, is an assessment tool that assesses the quality of life and the impact of various urban development initiatives. More than 32 lakhs of people in 111 cities participated in a ‘Citizen Perception Survey’, with a weighting of 30 percent.
No northern city with more than a million inhabitants was in the top 10 of the Municipal Performance Index, which involves 51 municipal corporations. Indore topped the index, followed by Surat, Bhopal, Pimpri Chinchwad and Pune. The last five were Aurangabad, North Delhi, Srinagar, Kota, and Guwahati.
New Delhi, however, topped the list of cities with less than a million inhabitants in the Municipal Performance Index, followed by Tirupati, Gandhinagar, Karnal and Salem. At the bottom were Itanagar, Pasighat, Kohima, Imphal, and Shillong.
With the financial autonomy of the municipalities “far from being achieved,” the report suggested amending the Constitution to promote fiscal decentralization.
While the 74th Constitutional Amendment Law, instituted nearly three decades ago to enable decentralized urban governance, has enough provisions to address the problems that cities face today, the report says that the implementation of the law has been compromised.
Only 20 cities out of the 111 cities surveyed have the power to borrow and invest funds without state approval, “a major blow to the goal of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act,” according to the report.
He suggested creating a five-year mayoral term across India and consolidating planning, development, housing, water and environment activities to inform municipalities rather than state governments. Since the financial autonomy of cities varies according to state municipal laws, the report says that cities with more financial autonomy perform better in service delivery and governance.
Half of the participating municipalities themselves generate less than 23 percent of their total income. Half of the cities generate 80 percent of their income from taxes alone, while 14 rely solely on taxes for their income. The vast majority, 95 percent, can only raise less than five percent of their income and loans through alternative sources of funding, excluding state and central grants.
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