Bengaluru and Shimla were on Thursday ranked as the most liveable in the categories of cities with more than and less than 1 million population respectively by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry’s Ease of Living Index.
The Ease of Living Index 2020, in which 111 cities participated during the assessment in 2020 that included citizens’ feedback, had Bengaluru at the top, followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore and Greater Mumbai in the category of cities with over 1 million population. In cities with less than a million population, Shimla topped the list, followed by Bhubaneshwar, Silvassa, Kakinada, Salem, Vellore, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Davangere and Tiruchirappalli.
The Ministry also released the Municipal Performance Index 2020, which rated 111 municipalities on their services, finance, policy, technology and governance. Indore topped the ranking of municipalities with over 1 million population, followed by Surat and Bhopal, and the New Delhi Municipal Council was the best among civic bodies with under a million population, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.
At the online launch of the indices, HUA Minister Hardeep Puri raised concerns about some State governments not being as serious as others about the implementation of the Smart Cities Mission. He said the special purpose vehicles set up for the Mission in each city should be headed by the same person for the duration of the project.
