Pune Tops Ease Of Living Index 2018, Bhubaneswar Ranks 18th

Bhubaneswar: Here’s something to cheer about. The Odisha capital has ranked 18th among the 20 most liveable cities from the 111 in the entire country.

The Ease of Living Index was launched by Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday. This survey was conducted in 111 cities across the country on four parameters – governance, social institutions, economic and physical infrastructure.

Pune took the first spot followed by Navi Mubai and Greater Mumbai. National Capital, New Delhi ranked low at 65. Other cities to have found a place on the list are Thane, Tirupati, Chandigarh, Raipur, Indore, Vijaywada and Bhopal.

This initiative of the Ministry of Urban Development aims to help the cities assess their liveability on the basis of national and global benchmarks. It would also encourage cities to move towards an outcome-based approach to urban planning and management.

A minister said the evaluation was done on 100-point scale. “The institutional and social pillars carried 25 points each, economic pillar had five and physical pillar had 45 points,” the minister added.

The cities submitted data on more than 50,000 points. Secondary audit of 10,000 documents, a physical audit of 14,000 units and a survey of more than 60,000 citizens were completed to reach the results.

According to the government, these assessment standards are linked closely to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), where eight of them are directly related to India’s ease of living assessment framework.