Bengaluru ranked India’s `most liveable city’ with million plus population

05 Mar 2021

Bengaluru, India’s IT capital is also the most liveable city among Indian cities with a population of more than a million, based on the government's `Ease of Living Index’. Former top ranker Pune has been pushed to second place while Ahmedabad has been ranked the third among 111 cities.

"Bengaluru emerged as the top performer in the Million+ category (in category of 'population more than million), followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Surat, Navi Mumbai, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Indore, and Greater Mumbai," according to a press release.

As per the index released by union minister for housing and urban affairs, Hardeep Puri, Shimla topped the category of cities with a ''population less than million.''

Shimla is followed by Bhubaneshwar, Silvassa, Kakinada, Salem, Vellore, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Davangere, and Tiruchirappalli.

The rankings under Ease of Living Index is done on an analysis of categories with more than a million population and those with less than a million population along with all the cities under the Smart Cities Programme.

Similar to the EoLI index, the assessment framework under MPI 2020 has classified municipalities based on their population - million+ and less than a million population. In the million+ category, Indore has emerged as the highest ranked municipality, followed by Surat and Bhopal. In the Less than a million category, New Delhi Municipal Council has emerged as the leader, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.

The MPI examined the sectoral performance of 111 municipalities (with Delhi being assessed separately for NDMC, and the three municipal corporations) across five verticals which comprise of 20 sectors and 100 indicators in all. The five verticals under MPI are Services, Finance, Policy, Technology and Governance.

The Ease of Living Index (EoLI) is an assessment tool that evaluates the quality of life and the impact of various initiatives for urban development. It provides a comprehensive understanding of participating cities across India based on quality of life, economic-ability of a city, and its sustainability and resilience. The assessment also incorporates the residents' view on the services provided by city administration through a Citizen Perception Survey.

The Municipal Performance Index (MPI) was launched as an accompaniment to the Ease of Living Index. It seeks to examine local government practice in municipalities across areas of services, finance, policy, technology and governance. It seeks to simplify and evaluate the complexities in local governance practice and promote the ethos of transparency and accountability.

The methodology and approach for the revised edition of EoLI and MPI were released by MoHUA in February 2019.

Expanding the scope for the EoLI framework in order to make it more robust, a Municipal Performance Index assessment was also undertaken for the first time in the country. The Municipal Performance Index is an effort to assess and analyse the performance of Indian municipalities based on their defined set of functions. The responsibilities of a municipality span across a range of verticals that include provision of basic pubic services to more complex domains like urban planning. The salient features of MPI are given below.

Through the index, citizens can better understand their local government administration, which in turn builds transparency and generates trust among key stakeholders.

The framework covers 20 varied sectors, viz, Education, Health, Water & Wastewater, SWM & Sanitation, Registration & Permits, Infrastructure, Revenue Management, Expenditure Management, Fiscal Responsibility, Fiscal Decentralisation, Digital Governance, Digital Access, Digital Literacy, Plan Preparation, Plan Implementation, Plan Enforcement, Transparency & Accountability, Human Resource, Participation and Effectiveness.

List of million-plus cities ranking in 2020:

1. Bengaluru 66.70

2. Pune 66.27

3. Ahmedabad 64.87

4. Chennai 62.61

5. Surat 61.73

6. Navi Mumbai 61.60

7. Coimbatore 59.72

8. Vadodara 59.24

9. Indore 58.58

10. Greater Mumbai 58.23

11. Thane 58.16

12. Kalyan Dombivali 57.71

13. Delhi 57.56

14. Ludhiana 57.36

15. Visakhapatnam 57.28

16. Pimpri Chinchwad 57.16

17. Solapur 56.58

18. Raipur 56.26

19. Bhopal 56.26

20. Rajkot 55.94

21. Jodhpur 55.80

22. Madurai 55.78

23. Jaipur 55.70

24. Hyderabad 55.40

25. Nagpur 55.33

26. Lucknow 55.15

27. Varanasi 54.67

28. Kanpur 54.43

29. Chandigarh 54.40

30. Ghaziabad 54.31

31. Gwalior 53.72

32. Prayagraj 53.29

33. Patna 53.26

34. Aurangabad 52.90

35. Agra 52.58

36. Meerut 52.41

37. Hubli Dharwad 51.39

38. Nashik 51.29

39. Vasai Virar 51.26

40. Faridabad 51.26

41. Vijayawada 50.35

42. Ranchi 50.31

43. Jabalpur 49.94

44. Kota 49.52

45. Amritsar 49.36

46. Guwahati 48.52

47. Bareilly 47.73

48. Dhanbad 46.96

49. Srinagar 42.95

List of cities with less than a million population in 2020:

1. Shimla 60.90

2. Bhubaneswar 59.85

3. Silvassa 58.43

4. Kakinada 56.84

5. Salem 56.40

6. Vellore 56.38

7. Gandhinagar 56.25

8. Gurugram 56.00

9. Davanagere 55.25

10. Tiruchirappalli 55.24

11. Agartala 55.20

12. Ajmer 54.89

13. Puducherry 54.78

14. Diu 54.64

15. Karnal 54.48

16. Panaji 54.44

17. Tirunelveli 54.04

18. Tiruppur 54.03

19. Warangal 54.01

20. Mangalore 53.95

21. Thiruvananthapuram 53.93

22. Karimnagar 53.27

23. Tumakuru 53.06

24. Erode 52.87

25. Sagar 52.86

26. Shivamogga 52.86

27. Jammu 52.49

28. Bihar Sharif 52.42

29. Dehradun 52.41

30. Bhagalpur 52.19

31. Thanjavur 52.18

32. Jalandhar 52.18

33. Ujjain 52.04

34. Jhansi 51.71

35. Shillong 51.65

36. Kavaratti 51.58

37. Dharamshala 51.51

38. Moradabad 51.43

39. Kochi 51.41

40. Rae Bareli 51.21

41. Gangtok 51.18

42. Port Blair 51.13

43. Thoothukudi 51.12

44. Saharanpur 50.91

45. Amravati 50.38

46. Tirupati 50.33

47. Belagavi 50.28

48. Udaipur 50.25

49. Kohima 49.87

50. Imphal 49.64

51. Dahod 49.40

52. Bilaspur 49.19

53. Itanagar 48.96

54. Rourkela 48.89

55. Pasighat 48.78

56. Dindigul 48.34

57. Aizawl 48.16

58. Aligarh 47.15

59. Rampur 46.88

60. Namchi 46.46

61. Satna 45.60

62. Muzaffarpur 45.53

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