Maharashtra people have a reason to rejoice! Pune, Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai from Maharashtra have been ranked as India’s three most livable places on the government’s inaugural ‘Ease of Living Index’, where the national capital came at 65th place out of total 111 cities.
Rampur in Uttar Pradesh figured at the bottom of the livability index released by the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry. Chennai has been ranked 14th, while Kolkata did not participate in the survey. Kohima (Nagaland) and Patna (Bihar) were also placed in the bottom-three.
In the top-ten, the three cities from Maharashtra were followed by Tirupati, Chandigarh, Thane, Raipur, Indore, Vijayawada and Bhopal.
Varanasi is at 33rd place, Ahmedabad at 23rd and Hyderabad at 27th.
This is the first-ever exercise undertaken by the ministry to rank the country’s major cities on the basis of four parameters of ease of living – governance, social, economic and physical infrastructure.
The Austrian capital of Vienna is ranked first in the Economist Intelligence Units’ (EIU) latest Global Liveability Survey released on Tuesday which found 68 cities to have improved their rankings over the last year with declines in just nine cities.
Four of these nine cities which have declined in rank are in Asia – Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu, Colombo and Dhaka – the Britain-based Economist magazine said.
“Their fall largely reflects an impact on culture and environment indicators. Increasing pollution is another factor affecting liveability in the region, especially in South Asia,” the statement said.
While Kathmandu fell two positions to 129th place due to deteriorating air quality, Dhaka, which has been the lowest ranked city in Asia for over a decade, also saw a further decline in liveability rating for increasing air pollution, originating primarily from the brick kilns on the outskirts of the city, it added.
New Delhi at 112 rank topped among six South Asian cities with Mumbai following at position 117. According to the EIU survey global liveability has improved for the second year in a row, from 74.8 per cent last year to 75.7 per cent at present, led by a 2.9 per cent improvement in stability.
The annual list assesses stability, healthcare, culture, environment, education and infrastructure in 140 different cities.
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