Ease of Living Index and Municipal Performance Index (MPI), India: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs

What is it about?

• Ease of Living Index is aimed at understanding various aspects; 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 helps in assessing the progress made in cities through various initiatives and empowers 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.
• The Ministry assess the performance of municipalities (MPI) based on five enablers namely:
  • Service
  • Finance
  • Planning
  • Technology
  • Governance

• These have been further divided into 20 sectors which will be evaluated across 100 indicators.

The Ease of Living Index 2020 ranked cities in the following two categories:

• Million+ populated cities – those with a population of more than a million. Bengaluru emerged as the top performer in this category.
• Less than Million populated cities – those with a population of less than a million. In this group, Shimla was ranked the highest in ease of living.
• No city has been included from West Bengal because of the “data challenge”.
• The Municipal Performance Index (MPI) was launched as an accompaniment to the Ease of Living Index. It seeks to examine local government practice in municipalities across areas of services, finance, policy, technology, and governance. It seeks to simplify and evaluate the complexities in local governance practice and promote the ethos of transparency and accountability.

The salient features of MPI are given below:

• The Municipal Performance Index provides a granular understanding of a municipalities’ functionalities and the extent of its development and capabilities. Through the index, citizens can better understand their local government administration, which in turn builds transparency and generates trust among key stakeholders.
• The framework covers 20 varied sectors vis. Education, Health, Water & Wastewater, SWM & Sanitation, Registration & Permits, Infrastructure, Revenue Management, Expenditure Management, Fiscal Responsibility, Fiscal Decentralisation, Digital Governance, Digital Access, Digital Literacy, Plan Preparation, Plan Implementation, Plan Enforcement, Transparency & Accountability, Human Resource, Participation, and Effectiveness.

Objectives of the Ease of Living Index:

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

NOTE:

• EoLI 2019 will facilitate the assessment of ease of living of citizens across three pillars: Quality of Life, Economic Ability, and Sustainabilitywhich are further divided into 14 categories across 50 indicators.
• For the first time, as part of the Ease of Living Index Assessment, a Citizen Perception Survey is being conducted on behalf of the Ministry (which carries 30% of the marks of the Ease of Living Index).
• This is a very important component of the assessment exercise as it will help indirectly capture the perception of citizens to the quality of life in their cities.