Doon 21st in quality of life index out of 23 cities

Doon 21st in quality of life index out of 23 cities

Highlighting the city’s gross under-preparedness to deliver a high quality of life that is sustainable in the long term, Dehradun languishes at the 21st spot in a list of 23 cities in terms of quality of governance.

 who did the survey? The findings, a part of Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems 2017,(ASICS-2017),  were released by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (Janaagraha), a Bengaluru-based non-profit institution that focuses on transforming lives in India’s cities and towns.
methodology ?.…..On a scale of 10,
Dehradun scored 3.1
Pune topped the list with 5.1.
Other cities that came in the top five are
Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar and Surat, with scores in the range of 4.6 to 4.5.

why dehradun rank is so poor

  • The survey revealed that Dehradun had not undertaken AMRUT reforms on publishing e-newsletters and demand collection book, credit rating, appointment of internal auditors and providing internship opportunities.
  • It also found out that the city lacked a resilience strategy and comprehensive mobility plan.
  • This was also marked by a decline in own revenue generation, on an average in the last three years.
  • Dehradun is ranked 21st, with a score of 3.1. It has dropped its rank by three positions and does not see a score change since 2016. Dehradun showed improvement in the total per capita capex with an average of Rs 593.86 in the last three years. But it is lower compared to Thiruvananthapuram (Rs. 4,094.24 ) and Pune (Rs. 4,357.23 ).
  • Dehradun lacks policies on green building incentives, mobility and land pooling.
 four key components of governance:
urban planning and design;
urban capacities and resources;
empowered and legitimate political representation;
transparency, and accountability and participation.
This was far behind cities such as London, New York and Johannesburg, which topped global benchmarks with 8.8, 8.8 and 7.6 points respectively.
ASICS identifies five systemic challenges that need to be urgently addressed for our cities to deliver a better quality
of life to citizens in a sustainable manner. These are:
1. Lack of a modern, contemporary framework of spatial planning of cities and design standards for public utilities such as roads, footpaths, bus stops and other underground utilities such as water and sewerage networks
2. Weak finances, both in terms of financial sustainability and financial accountability of cities
3. Poor human resource management, in terms of number of staff, skills and competencies of staff,organisation design and performance management
4. Powerless mayors and city councils and severe fragmentation of governance across municipalities,parastatal agencies and state departments
5. Total absence of platforms for systematic citizen participation and lack of transparency in finances and operations of cities
poor quality of life in indian cities and poor governance………………
Indian cities also have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to becoming self-reliant. The cities assessed in the study were found to be generating only 39% of the funds they spend on an average, with Patna raising just 17% on its own. Only Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune generate over 50% of the amount they spend from their own revenue. The study found that in several cities, their own revenues did not even cover staff salaries. “Lack of adequate revenue sources of their own severely constrains the ability of our cities to invest in infrastructure and service delivery,” the report said.
Janaagraha CEO Srikanth Viswanathan said the objective of the survey was to measure the preparedness of cities to deliver high quality infrastructure and services in the long term by evaluating “city systems”. “On a scale of 10, 12 out of 23 cities have scored below four – indicating the precarious situation of our cities. The pace of reforms in India has been painfully slow. Recurring floods, garbage crises, air pollution, fire accidents, building collapses and dengue outbreaks are symptoms of this deeper governance crisis in our cities,” he said.
Among the medium cities (with a population of up to one million), Ranchi has broken into the top 10 with a score of 4.1. Bengaluru and Chandigarh (perceived as a planned city) figured at the bottom of the list. “Bengaluru is a poor outlier among mega-cities primarily on account of weak finances,” said Vivek Anandan Nair, associate manager and project lead of ASICS-2017.
The survey also found urban capacities across cities suffering from rampant staff vacancies, inadequate domain experience of senior municipal officers, and powerless mayors and councils. Commissioners were found to have only have 2.7 years of experience in urban management on an average. Average staff vacancy stood at 35%, with Guwahati bottoming out at 60%.
“The mayor and councils in our cities are toothless. They don’t have full decision-making authority over critical functions such as planning, housing, water, environment, fire and emergency services,” the report stated.
Only a few cities, such as Bhopal, Kanpur and Lucknow, have a directly elected mayor with five-year tenure while metros like Bengaluru and Delhi have an indirectly elected mayor with one-year tenure.
The survey went on to state that no city in India has effective policies to deter plan violations, a deficiency that leads to the mushrooming of slums and unauthorised colonies. While all its 23 cities scored zero on this parameter, London, New York and Johannesburg notched a perfect 10 out of 10.
Moreover, most of the country’s town and country planning acts date back to the previous century. It has one planner per four lakh citizens (as opposed to 48 in the United States and 148 in the United Kingdom) the study said, pointing out that poor urban planning can cost a country 3% of its GDP.
“Our study once again reiterates the need to fix city governance on a war footing. There will be no change unless the state government empowers municipalities. Lack of legislative imagination and political will has resulted in state governments not fixing city governance,” Viswanathan said.
The study ranked cities on the basis of four key components of governance – urban planning and design; urban capacities and resources; empowered and legitimate political representation; and transparency, accountability and participation. Scores were accorded in the 0-10 range.

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