For the second year in a row, Thiruvananthapuram has been ranked as the best city in the country in an annual survey conducted by a Bengaluru-based organisation – Janaagraha. Pune bagged the second spot, two ranks over 2015 and Kolkata came third, same as 2015. Bhubaneswar made the biggest leap by jumping eight ranks over 2015 to the 10th spot.
The Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) is aimed at serving as an annual health check-up of the quality of laws, policies, institutions and institutional processes underlying quality of life in cities. Srikanth Viswanathan, Chief Executive Officer, Janaagraha, said the survey “aims to push the envelope on city governance reforms in India through data and insights.
“Bhubaneswar on the back of a slew of reforms such as instituting municipal cadres tiered spatial planning including ward level plans and instituting a single window clearance process for development projects that are in conformity with plans,” Srikanth said.
Bengaluru (16), Jaipur(20), Chandigarh (21) came last among the cities, but are considered better cities to live in than some of the other cities like Patna (11) and Ranchi (13), though they figure higher in the list, as per the survey.
ASICS 2016 evaluates 21 major cities from 18 states across the country. The fourth edition of the annual survey did not include states from the northeast. It is more likely that the city which scores higher on the survey will be able to deliver a better quality of life to citizens.
Laws related to city administration, taxation, local governance models, political participation of citizens, financial capacity of cities are among the 83 parameters that are considered while declaring the results.
