The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched assessment frameworks for the Ease of Living Index (EoLI) and Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2019. It aims to assess the progress made in cities through various initiatives and empower them to use evidence to plan, implement and monitor their performance. Both these indices are designed to assess the quality of life of citizens in 100 Smart Cities and 14 other million-plus cities.

Ease of Living Index

The ministry launched the Ease of Living Index in January 2018 to help cities systematically assess themselves against global and national benchmarks and encourage them to shift towards an ‘outcome-based’ approach to urban planning and management.

The Ease of Living Index is aimed at providing a holistic view of Indian cities -  beginning from services provided by local bodies, the effectiveness of the administration, the outcomes generated through these services in terms of liveability within cities and the citizen perception of these outcomes.

The key objectives are to…

* Generate information to assist evidence-based planning.

* Catalyse actions to achieve broader development outcomes, including Sustainable Development Goals.

* Assess outcomes achieved from various urban policies and schemes.

* Obtain the perception of citizens about their view of the services provided by the city administration.

How is the EoLI calculated?

The EoLI will facilitate the assessment of ease of living of citizens across three pillars: quality of life, economic ability and sustainability, which are further divided into 14 categories across 50 indicators.

All participating cities have appointed nodal officers whose responsibility is to collect and collate the relevant data points from various departments both within and outside of the urban local bodies and upload the same along with supporting documents in the exclusive web portal designed for this purpose.

The ministry has made several provisions for providing assistance to cities in this process of collection, collation and uploading of data.

There are also more than 50 assessors who have been posted on the ground to work with the nodal officers to collect and collate information from various departments, as well as to assist in uploading data and documents to the specifications of the assessment protocol.

As part of the assessment, a citizen perception survey is conducted, which carries 30 per cent of the marks of the Ease of Living Index.

In the inaugural edition, Pune bagged the first spot as the most livable city. Andhra Pradesh topped the charts among states in terms of Ease of Living Index rankings. It was followed by Odisha and Madhya Pradesh.

Municipal Performance Index

With the Municipal Performance Index 2019, the ministry has sought to assess the performance of municipalities based on five enablers - service, finance, planning, technology and governance, which have been further divided into 20 sectors that will be evaluated across 100 indicators.

This will help municipalities in better planning and management, filling the gaps in city administration and improving the liveability of cities for its citizens.

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