Bengaluru Ranks On Top As Most Livable City in India

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has named Bengaluru the most livable city in India. The result was published in their 'State of India's Environment in Figures 2021' report on June 16. The cities to occupy the next five positions were Chennai, Shimla, Bhubaneshwar, Mumbai, and Delhi. Only three state capitals were ranked among the top ten livable cities.

The report determined the ease of living index score on a scale of 100 through four parameters — citizen's perceptions, economic ability, quality of life, and sustainability — reported The News Minute. Bengaluru obtained a hefty score of 66.7, followed by Chennai at 62.61.

Best and Worst Performers: By Each Parameter

However, each of these parameters, too, had individual best and worst performers. For example, in the quality-of-life parameter, Chennai scored the highest (60.84), but in the parameter of economic ability, the highest was scored by Bengaluru (78.82). Similarly, in the parameter of citizen's perception, the highest scorer was Bhubaneshwar (94.8), but Bengaluru's score (78) was not impressive in this parameter. The worst capital city in this category was Delhi, merely scoring 69.4.

Highlighted Issues

The report also addressed the lack of economic opportunities in these capitals as a matter of immediate concern. Bengaluru is the only state capital that showed a favourable economic ability, scoring 78.82 in the parameter. The other state capitals that demonstrated moderate economic ability were Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai. All the other cities scored less than 30 in this parameter.

Another issue that the report highlighted was the deplorable percentage of sewage treatment in these cities. Only 28% of the generated sewage is treated. The report said, "The states and Union territories (UTs) of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland do not treat sewage in their cities at all."

Citizen's Perception

The first edition of this index was published in 2018, followed by the second edition this year. However, this is the first time that it has included the citizen's perception parameter. Interestingly, despite scoring poorly in all the other parameters, the state capitals obtained high scores in the citizen's feedback parameter.

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