City moves up six places to no. 25

Nagpur: The city ranked 25th among 111 in the country’s Ease of Living Index (EOLI) 2020 released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. In 2019, the city’s ranking was 31. The Municipal Performance Index, which was introduced for the first time, saw the NMC securing 30th position.
Nagpur’s poor performance is attributed to citizens’ feedback.“Sufficiency of income to maintain quality of life and incidence of water logging are the two main categories where the city scored low,” Smart City CEO Buvneshwari S told TOI, adding she was happy with the city’s 25th ranking.
Minister of state for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday released the EOLI 2020 and the Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2020 in an online event. EOLI 2020 assessed a total of 111 cities of which 49 have population over a million and 62 below a million (10 lakh) people.
The EOLI primarily seeks to improve India’s urban development environment including the achievement of sustainable development goals, measuring well-being of citizens for such things as quality of life, economic ability and sustainability based on 49 indicators under 13 categories.
EOLI measures outcome of the indicators whereas Municipal Performance Index (MPI) focuses on the factors that produce those outcomes.
Nagpur is at 16th, 17th and 20th position under sustainability, citizen perception survey and economic ability but surprisingly Nagpur is at 38th spot in quality of life, which affected Nagpur’s overall position.
Under MPI, Nagpur did quite well under technology, governance and services securing 9th, 15th and 22nd position respectively among cities with plus one million population. However, in finance, Nagpur is placed at 43rd position, which also had a direct impact on planning where Nagpur is at 50th position.
Buvneshwari S said NSSCDCL will try to improve shortcomings. “This will also help in improving performance of Nagpur city,” she said.
Mayor Dayashankar Tiwari and municipal commissioner Radhakrishnan B congratulated the NSSCDCL for improving the city’s rankings.
Industrialist Manish Jain admitted insufficient salaries or wages were being paid to both employees and daily wagers in the city. Citing an example, he said industries could easily hire an MBA on Rs 8,000 salary per month, exposing insufficiency of income to maintain quality of life in the state’s second capital.
Civic activist and founder of city-based NGO Green Vigil foundation Kaustav Chatterjee said the city's MPI has been badly affected by finance and planning. “It is well known that NMC is struggling with finance which affects planning. Otherwise NMC has done quite well,” he pointed out.
“Due to routine cleaning of Nag, Pili and Pohra rivers, waterlogging has reduced to a large extent. However, it culd have increased in some areas due to construction of cement roads,” he explained. It will be unfair to judge any municipal corporation based on performance for the last one year as the main focus for all ULBs were to combat Covid-19, Chatterjee said.
Abhijeet Jha of Nagpur Citizens Forum said, “Although Nagpur’s position in the Smart City rankings has improved it is not satisfactory.” Metro, cement roads and flyovers are not the only defining factors of development. If the greenery of the city is to be destroyed to create a concrete jungle, then Nagpur will not be a livable city.
“It is necessary to study the planning done by the top 10 cities and formulate a policy. Public participation is also important in this process. If people are actively involved, this picture will definitely change and Nagpur will be in the top 10,” he pointed out.
SCORE CARD
Under EOLI
* Nagpur secured 16th, 17th and 20th position under Sustainability, Citizen Perception Survey and Economic Ability
* City is at 38th Position in Quality of Life
UNDER MPI
* Nagpur secured 9th, 15th and 22nd position in Technology, Governance and Services
* 43rd position in Finance
* 50th position in Planning