Hyderabad city has been ranked 9th when it comes to the quality of life for its citizens and the practices in an annual survey which goes beyond the cleanliness aspect of Swachh Bharat. Mumbai is the topper in the survey for 2015. In a similar survey in 2014, Hyderabad was ranked 17{+t}{+h}, showing once again that the civic services are improving from a low of 2.9 in 2014 to a somewhat better score of 3.6 in 2015.
The best practices in cites of London and New York formed the benchmark for the survey. Not surprisingly, most of Indian cities came up woefully short.
However, Hyderabad is one of the top cities when it comes to generating its own revenue. Hyderabad generated 86 per cent of revenue used for developing the city, in contrast Mumbai managed to generate only 67 per cent revenue to its total expenditure which is much better in comparison to Chennai which generated only 31 per cent of its revenue.
Where Hyderabad falls short is its woefully inadequate spend on its citizens. Hyderabad scores a low 3.4 as against 6.7 by Chennai and 7.3 by Mumbai.
A similar low score affecting the usefulness of municipality is underscored by inadequate civic staff in comparison to population. Hyderabad scores a 3 whereas Delhi scores a high 10 which was used as a benchmark for having highest number of staffers. Perhaps giving an indication of why Hyderabad is lagging in areas when it comes to delivering civic promises. “Yes. We are understaffed but we are moving towards hiring more staff. The government has initiated steps to hire and hopefully we will be able to deliver better service to citizens in Hyderabad,” said GHMC Commissioner B. Janardhan.
The city ranks on the top when it comes to optimum use of IT among its peers. But, for all its vaunted talk about use of infotech for delivering civic services, the survey gives a low 1.7 rank same as in Chennai but lower than Bhopal and Delhi. However, Hyderabad scores a high of 6.7 about the information put out by the civic body to facilitate citizen participation. Only Bengaluru comes close with a score of 6.3. The city is ranked third in addressing citizens complaints on par with Delhi.
The survey done over six months usesJanaagraha City-Systems Framework as its basis and asks 11 main questions with 83 parameters on four major subheads—urban planning and design, urban capacities and resources, empowered and legitimate political representation, and transparency, accountability and participation.
Many of the newly-elected corporators gripe about the lack of powers in shaping the policies of the civic body. “We have no direct role in any decisions,” a corporators said on condition of anonymity. In tune with this perception, the survey found that Hyderabad scores 2.1 when it comes to citizens’ belief that their city leaders can mould policy.
