Ease of Living

Spotlight Sep 28: Ease of Living – https://youtu.be/Zhb78PBkrEA 

GOVERNANCE

• GS-I: Urbanization, their problems and their remedies
• GS-II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation

Ease of Living

Aim: To help assess the progress made in cities through various initiatives and empower them to use evidence to plan, implement & monitor their performance 

By: The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs

Ease of Living Index is aimed at providing a holistic view of Indian cities – beginning from the services provided by local bodies, the effectiveness of the administration, the outcomes generated through these services in terms of the liveability within cities and, finally, the citizen perception of these outcomes. It provides a comprehensive understanding of participating cities across India based on the quality of life, the economic ability of a city, and its sustainability and resilience.

The key objectives of the Ease of Living Index are four-folds, viz. 

1. Generate information to guide evidence-based policy making; 
2. Catalyse action to achieve broader developmental outcomes including the SDG; 
3. Assess and compare the outcomes achieved from various urban policies and schemes; and
4. Obtain the perception of citizens about their view of the services provided by the city administration. 

Quality of Life

1. Education: Household expenditure on education; literacy rate; pupil-teacher ratio; dropout rate; access to digital education; professionally trained teachers; national achievement survey score.
2. Health: Household expenditure on health; availability of healthcare; professionals; accredited public health facilities; availability of hospital beds; prevalence of water borne diseases; prevalence of vector borne diseases;
3. Mobility: Availability of public transport; transport related fatalities; road infrastructure (road density, footpath density).
4. WASH and SWM: Water supply to household; households with piped water; supply Swachh Survekshan score; amount of waste water treated; connected to sewerage network.
5. Housing and Shelter: Households with electrical; connections; average length of electrical; interruptions; beneficiaries under PMAY; slum population.
6. Safety and security: Prevalence of violent crime; extent of crime recorded against women; extent of crime recorded against children; extent of crime recorded against elderly.
7. Recreation: Availability of open space; availability of recreation facilities.

Economic Ability

1. Level of Economic Development: Traded clusters
2. Economic Opportunities: Cluster strength; credit availability; number of incubation centres/skill development centres.
3. Gini Coefficient: Inequality index based on consumption expenditure.

Sustainability

1. Environment: Water quality; total tree cover; households using clean fuel for cooking; hazardous waste generation; air quality index (SO2, NO2, PM10).
2. Green Spaces and buildings: Availability of green spaces; does the city incentivise green buildings?; green buildings in the city.
3. City Resilience: Has the city implemented local disaster reduction strategies?; number of deaths and directly affected persons attributed to disasters.
4. Energy Consumption: Energy requirement vs energy supplied; energy generated from renewable sources; number of energy parks.