Quality of life survey: Delhi sixth among 21 cities; Mumbai tops list

Delhi: Delhi has been ranked sixth among 21 big cities in a survey which was done to assess the capability of city administration to deliver better quality of life.

On the other hand, Mumbai topped the list and moved eight places from last year. The capability was assessed over medium and long term.

As per a report in The Times of India, Thiruvananthapuram has retained the second position.

Bhubaneswar is at 18th position in the list and Chandigarh was at the bottom for the second time in a row.

Delhi was at number five in 2014.

The Annual Survey of India's City-Systems (ASICS) survey conducted by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.

The survey was done in 18 states and said that all the 21 cities had very low score when compared to cities such as London and New York.

As per the survey, all Indian cities continued to score in the range of two to 4.2 on a scale of zero to 10.

In contrast, London and New York have scored 9.4 and 9.7 respectively.

However, Hyderabad marked a major improvement and moved up from 17 to nine in an year, while Kanpur moved up six spots last year (it was ranked 14th in 2014). 

"On the individual city-systems components, our cities have scored in a range of 0.6 to 6.4. These scores imply that Indian cities are grossly under-prepared to deliver a high quality of life that is sustainable in the long term. This is particularly worrisome, given the rapid pace of urbanisation in India and the huge backlog in public service delivery," the report said, as quoted by the Daily.

The Daily also quoted Janaagraha coordinator Srikanth Viswanath as saying that "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 i.e., 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."