Quality of life list: Delhi slips to 6th, Mumbai No.1

Mumbai topped the list of 21 big cities in a survey on the capability of a city administration to deliver better quality of life over the medium and long term. While the maximum city moved eight places from last year and Thiruvananthapuram retained second position, Delhi moved one place down, to sixth, from fifth in 2014. Bhubaneswar, which came first in the smart cities contest recently, came 18th. The Annual Survey of India's City-Systems by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy covered 18 states.

According to the survey report, all 21 cities had very low scores compared to cities such as London and New York, indicating the need to push major reforms in municipal governance as pressure increases on major urban centres. In fact, one of the few planned cities -Chandigarh -has the dubious distinction of being at the bottom for the second time in a row.The survey has revealed how all Indian cities continue to score in the range of two to 4.2 on a scale of zero to 10, while London and New York have scored 9.4 and 9.7 respectively.

Cities that have made major improvements include Hyderabad, which has moved up from 17 to nine within a span of one year and Kanpur, which ranked at 14 in 2014, moving up six spots last year.

Similarly, Chennai made remarkable improvement, while Raipur and Surat slipped significantly .

Highlighting the importance of the report, Janaagraha coordinator Srikanth Viswanath said at a time when governments have been launching urban rejuvenation programmes, “floods in Mumbai, garbage crisis in Bangalore, and more recently air pollution levels in Delhi and Chennai floods are alarm bells that more of the same solutions -a series of patchwork projects -will not suffice“.

“Root causes need to identified and addressed; the disease needs to be treated and not just the symptoms,“ he said.