Andhra Pradesh has topped the charts among States in terms of “Ease of Living Index” rankings launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).  It was followed by Odisha and Madhya Pradesh.  The three States were awarded the three best performing States at the National Dissemination Workshop on Ease of Living Index, 2018, here today. Why Ease of Living Index While presenting the awards to the States, the Union Minister of State (I/C)) for Housing and Urban Affairs, Shri Hardeep Singh Puri said that the Ease of Living Index is a transformative initiative of the Ministry to help the cities assess their liveability vis-à-vis national and global benchmarks. He exuded confidence that the Ease of Living Index will encourage all cities to move towards an ‘outcome-based’ approach to urban planning and management and promote healthy competition among cities. Sh Durga Shankar Mishra, Secretary MoHUA, Sh Shiv Das Meena, Additional Secretary and Mission heads under Urban Affairs, urban planners from States and Union Territories attended the Workshop. Ease of Living Index will help in planning Addressing the participants, Sh Puri said that this exercise marked a major milestone in India’s goal to promote evidence-based planning and action towards sustainable urbanization.  “The ‘Ease of Living Index seeks to assist cities in undertaking a 360-degree assessment of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats”, he added. It was decided in June 2017 to rank 116 cities (all smart cities and million plus cities) based on the liveability parameters. Assessment process The implementation of the assessment commenced formally on 19 January 2018.  The MoHUA released the first ever ‘Ease of Living Index’ covering 111 Indian cities on 13 August, 2018, which serves as a litmus test to help assess the progress made in cities through various initiatives. All cities were evaluated out of 100. The physical pillar (infrastructure) was given the highest weightage of 45, while institutional (governance) and social were weighted 25 each. Economy was weighted 5. Components of Ease of Living Index Shri Hardeep Puri pointed out that Ease of Living Index framework comprised four pillars namely

• Institutional,
• Social,
• Economic and
• Physical

These are further broken down into 78 indicators across 15 categories (governance, identity and culture, education, health, safety and security, economy, affordable housing, land use planning, public open spaces, transportation and mobility, assured water supply, waste-water management, solid waste management, power, and quality of environment). Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “Another highlight of the Ease of Living Index assessment standards is its close linkage with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Of the 17 SDG goals, 8 goals are directly linked to India’s ease of living assessment framework with SDG 11” he said. The Minister highlighted that SDG 11 is aimed at making our cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable and is measured through a set of 30 indicators.  He said, “the Ease of Living Index provides a strong impetus to India’s effort for systematically tracking the progress of SDGs in the urban areas.” Assessment Exerciser Elaborating on the importance of having a relook at the whole exercise undertaken which led to the final scores and ranking, Shri Hardeep Puri said, “the assessment was launched at the national level with a National Orientation Workshop to orient city officials on assessment framework. It was followed by 33 state level workshops spread across all 26 states and Union Territories to introduce and explain the framework to all stakeholders. Over 1500 officials participated across all workshops.” Data collection process Shri Puri also pointed out that besides collecting data for Ease of Living Index on a range of metrics to evaluate performance of the city administration, the exercise spread over four months also collected feedback from over 60,000 citizens to measure satisfaction on urban services. The first round of Ease of Living Index covered 111 cities. Gurugram was subsequently included in the assessment.  Four cities of West Bengal – Howrah, New Town Kolkata, Kolkata and Durgapur did not participate and Naya Raipur of Chhattisgarh and Amravati of Andhra Pradesh did not fulfil the parameters as they are green-field cities. The Minister hoped that this workshop will provide an opportunity for the states and cities to offer their valuable suggestions and also go over  the lessons learnt from the previous Ease of Living Index to ensure a more robust methodology for future. The workshop will dwell upon the approach, challenges and key learnings from the first exercise of Ease of Living Index, 2018. Shri Puri also urged all States and cities to share their inputs on ‘City GDP Framework’ so as to devise a robust GDP framework for cities. The government hoped that the big bonus that will come with the scheme is the fact that it will lead to a healthy competition between cities, based on the rankings, and generate acute interest, comparisons, critiques and analysis by citizens. List of Cities covered under  Ease of Living Index -2018

State/UT	Sl. No	Cities
Andaman and Nicobar	1	Port Blair
Andhra Pradesh	2	Kakinada
	3	Visakhapatnam
	4	Tirupati
	5	Vijayawada
Arunachal Pradesh	6	Itanagar
	7	Pasighat
Assam	8	Guwahati
Bihar	9	Bhagalpur
	10	Muzaffarpur
	11	Biharsharif
	12	Patna
Chandigarh	13	Chandigarh
Chhattisgarh	14	Bilaspur
	15	Raipur
Dadra and Nagar Haveli	16	Silvassa
Daman and Diu	17	Diu
Goa	18	Panaji
Gujarat	19	Ahmedabad
	20	Surat
	21	Vadodara
	22	Gandhinagar
	23	Dahod
	24	Rajkot
Haryana	25	Karnal
	26	Faridabad
	27	Gurgaon
Himachal Pradesh	28	Dharamshala
	29	Shimla
Jammu & Kashmir	30	Jammu
	31	Srinagar
Jharkhand	32	Ranchi
	33	Dhanbad
Karnataka	34	Davanagere
	35	Belagavi
	36	Hubbali-Dharwad
	37	Mangaluru
	38	Shivamogga
	39	Tumakuru
	40	Bangalore
Kerala	41	Kochi
	42	Thiruvananthapuram
Laksadweep	43	Kavaratti
Madhya Pradesh	44	Indore
	45	Bhopal
	46	Ujjain
	47	Satna
	48	Sagar
	49	Jabalpur
	50	Gwalior
Maharashtra	51	Solapur
	52	Pune
	53	Aurangabad
	54	Kalyan-Dombivali
	55	Nagpur
	56	Amravati
	57	Nashik
	58	Thane
	59	Greater Mumbai
	60	Navi Mumbai
	61	PimpriChinchwad
	62	Vasai-Virar City
Manipur	63	Imphal
Meghalaya	64	Shillong
Mizoram	65	Aizawl
Nagaland	66	Kohima
NCT Delhi	67	Delhi
Odisha	68	Bhubaneswar
	69	Rourkela
Puducherry	70	Puducherry
Punjab	71	Jalandhar
	72	Ludhiana
	73	Amritsar
Rajasthan	74	Udaipur
	75	Ajmer
	76	Jaipur
	77	Kota
	78	Jodhpur
Sikkim	79	Namchi
	80	Gangtok
Tamil Nadu	81	Salem
	82	Thanjavur
	83	Vellore
	84	Dindigul
	85	Erode
	86	Tiruchirappalli
	87	Thoothukkudi
	88	Tiruppur
	89	Tirunelveli
	90	Chennai
	91	Coimbatore
	92	Madurai
Telangana	93	Warangal
	94	Hyderabad
	95	Karim Nagar
Tripura	96	Agartala
Uttar Pradesh	97	Lucknow
	98	Agra
	99	Moradabad
	100	Aligarh
	101	Rampur
	102	Rae Bareli
	103	Bareilly
	104	Jhansi
	105	Saharanpur
	106	Kanpur
	107	Varanasi
	108	Ghaziabad
	109	Meerut
	110	Allahabad
Uttarakhand	111	Dehradun

  Ranking: Ease of Living Index-2018

Top ten cities

Pune

Navi Mumbai

Greater Mumbai

Tirupati

Chandigarh

Thane

Raipur

Indore

Vijaywada

10. Bhopal

  Pillar Wise: Top ten cities

Ranks	Institutional	Social	Economic	Physical
1	Navi Mumbai	Tirupati	Chandigarh	Greater Mumbai
2	Tirupati	Tiruchirappalli	Ajmer	Pune
3	Karim Nagar	Navi Mumbai	Kota	Thane
4	Hyderabad	Chandigarh	Indore	Chandigarh
5	Bilaspur	Pune	Tiruppur	Raipur
6	Kochi	Greater Mumbai	Itanagar	Tirupati
7	Ahmedabad	Amravati	Pune	Navi Mumbai
8	Pune	Vijayawada	Ludhiana	Bhopal
9	Vijayawada	Indore	Thane	Bilaspur
10	Visakhapatnam	Vasai Virar	Vijayawada	Visakhapatnam

  Ease of Living Index-City Population Typology wise: Top three cities

Population ≥ 4 million	Population ≥ 1 million < 4 million	Population ≥ 0.5 million < 1 million	Population > 0.5 million
Greater Mumbai	Pune	Chandigarh	Tirupati
Chennai	Navi Mumbai	Tiruchirappalli	Karimnagar
Surat	Thane	Amravati	Bilaspur