Aurangabad ranks 97 of 111 cities, Pune tops in Ease of Living Index 2018

Aurangabad once the fastest growing city in Asia and amongst the few in Independent India to get a planned extension in the firm of CIDCO has lost the plot. It ranked a lowly 97 th amongst 111 cities surveyed. Aurangabad missed the bus in the survey by a wide margin. Fastest growing in the 80’s, and having planned it’s growth in the form of CIDCO, Aurangabad couldn’t make it’s presence felt in the survey. Aurangabad, ranked a lowly 97 on the index.

Surprisingly,  Three cities of Maharashtra – Pune, Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai – are the most livable places in the country, according to the ranking of 111 cities on the Ease of Living Index released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on Monday. Hardeep Singh Puri, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister launched the index today along with launching Swachh Survekshan 2019 in New Delhi. The Swachh Survekshan 2019 is proposed to be conducted from January 4 to 31, to encourage “large scale” citizen participation ensuring sustainability of initiatives taken towards making cities garbage-free and open defecation-free.

The Ease of Living Index is an initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to help cities assess their liveability vis-a-vis global and national benchmarks and encourage cities to move towards an ‘outcome-based’ approach to urban planning and management. Cities were ranked on four factors – institutions and governance, social infrastructure (education/health), economic factors and physical infrastructure.

Earlier, it was decided in June 2017 to rank cities based on the liveability parameters. The implementation of the assessment commenced formally on 19 January 2018 covering 111 cities. Under the analysis, evaluation of cities has the institutional and social pillars carry 25 points each, 5 points is reserved for the economic category and 45 points for the physical pillar. Under the exhaustive project, 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 have been completed which led to finalization of ease of living index.

Ease Of Living Index-2018 ranking of cities of Maharashtra

Pune -1
Navi Mumbai -2
Greater Mumbai- 3
Thane – 6
Amravati -16
Vasai-Virar – 20
Nashik -21
Solapur -22
Nagpur -31
Kalyan-Dombivali -50
Pimpri-Chinchwad – 69
Aurangabad -97

Announced by MoHUA today in New Delhi.