Bengaluru has been adjudged the most liveable city among the country’s 49 cities with one-million plus population, in the second and latest edition of the national Ease of Living Index (EoLI) 2020. Bengaluru catapulted from 58th rank in EoLI 2018 to the top, bumping down the former topper, Pune, to second place.
Among 62 cities with less than one million population, Shimla topped the list, followed by Bhubaneswar.
“The Bengaluru model of development of citizen-centric initiatives and delivery of services have ensured the top ranking of Bengaluru,” chief minister BS Yediyurappa’s office tweeted.
The Union housing and urban development ministry launched EoLI 2020 last year in an effort to systematically assess Indian cities themselves against global and national benchmarks. Unlike the first report of 2018, the latest ranking has divided 111 cities into two categories — with population of a millionplus and below a million. The report was released on Thursday, with the assessment exercise carried out last year just before the lockdown.
While Bengaluru was followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Surat in the 1 million-plus category, Hubballi-Dharwad, the only other city from Karnataka, stood 37th. Among 62 cities with less than a million population, four cities from Karnataka were ranked: Davanagere (9); Mangaluru (20); Tumakuru (26) and Belagavi (47).
Covid war room, rejuvenation of lakes helped us secure rank, says Palike chief
Our primary reason for securing this rank was the Covid war room, rejuvenation of lakes, and improvising on providing a better lifestyle to people,” BBMP commissioner Manjunatha Prasad said. “We were the first city to create a war room to manage Covid-19 in the country. Through this, we were able to manage the pandemic better.”
He added, “Everybody knows that Bengaluru is one of the safest cities to live in and the quality of life here is good, due to which our migrant population is also very high.” The other contributing factors to the city’s performance, according to Prasad, are “the 150 BBMP schools, 34 maternity hospitals and 149 PHCs which are functioning very well”.
According to the report, Indian cities achieved an average score of 53.5 in the EoLI on a scale of 0-100. It has also flagged the low national average scores on economic ability at 13.2. This means there is untapped potential in urban centres to turn them into hubs of economic growth. EoLI’s highlight is the addition of citizens’ perception, which contributed to 30% of the weightage, and to assess the performance of local bodies and the efficiency and outcomes of their service.
The index was measured across parameters of quality of life, economic ability, sustainability and citizens’ perception, under 13 categories: education, health, housing and shelter, WASH and SWM, mobility, safety, recreation, level of economic development, economic opportunities, environment, green spaces, energy consumption and city resilience.