At 19th position, Hyderabad ranks poorly in public perception

HYDERABAD: Owing to poor public participation, the city has ended up faring poorly in the Citizen Perception Survey (CPS) 2022 conducted by the ministry of housing and urban affairs. With just 24,013 citizens participating in the survey, Hyderabad ranked 19th after Dhanbad in Jharkhand under cities that have at least one million population.
CPS is part of the Ease of Living Index seeking to directly capture the perception of citizens with respect to the quality of life in their cities. The survey will help government administrations understand the opinion of citizens and help improve service delivery and governance of cities.
Within Telangana, Hyderabad ranked third in the survey behind Warangal and Karimnagar as many citizens participated in the survey there. While Warangal had over 96,000 participants, more than 79,000 citizens participated in the online survey in Karimnagar.
Sources in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) said there has been a lack of awareness and interest amongst the citizens about taking the survey. "Efforts were taken to promote the survey on social media and news organisations. But the efforts did not yield the desired results that other cities had," a senior official told TOI.
Lack of participation in the citizen perception will affect the overall ranking in the upcoming Ease of Living Index 2022 results. In 2021, the city had ranked 24th among 49 cities in the Ease of Living Index with its competitor city, Bengaluru, clinching the first place.
The survey considers the citizens' views on the services provided by the administration.
"Last year too, we measured poorly in citizen perception. The government failed to get the citizen participation increase. Even if the government managed to make the BRS party leaders and workers within the city participate, the figure would easily be more than 30,000 at least," city-based RTI activist Raj Kumar Singh told TOI.