India will soon have its own liveability index
Taking a leaf out of international practice of rating cities on liveability, India is all set to introduce its own liveability index.

Beginning with 100 smart cities, the liveability index would rank all Indian cities on 77 parameters including how they fare in terms of grievance redressal of citizens, pollution, availability of water and power, online citizen services, upkeep of historical buildings, increase in tourist footfalls, crime rate, extent of crimes recorded against women, children and elderly, availability of traffic surveillance system and education. The liveability index, which would be unveiled at an urban development ministry workshop on Tuesday, would chart a city’s progress against various standards under four categories – institutional, social, economic and physical.

These would in turn be divided into 15 sub-categories of standards and take the form of 15 category indexes, which will together contribute to a common City Liveability Index.
These indices will be used to create a ranking framework for all cities, facilitating a competitive environment amongst cities to improve their liveability. Asenior urban development ministry official told ET, “Sub-indices will help cities to identify and improve upon particular areas of deficiency for improving their indices and comparative inter-city rankings. This competitive approach would help in improving urban infrastructure in the cities.”
Ascientific formula has been developed giving percentage weightage to the four categories of reforms. Maximum weightage (40%) would be given to physical infrastructure, which would include water, energy, waste water, solid waste, housing, open space, mobility and pollution indices.
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