Mumbai may have ranked first among mega cities in the Ease of Living Index (EoLI) 2018, but nodal agency Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is worried about its ranking this year as only about 8,000 Mumbaikars have voted so far.
Citizens’ participation has 30% weightage and at least two to five lakh Mumbaikars need to vote in the next four days in order to improve its position. The BMC has also seen poor participation of citizens in the Swachh Survekshan campaign.
Meeting benchmarks
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs unveiled the EoLI 2019 and the municipal performance index earlier this month to help assess the progress made in cities and empower them to use evidence to plan, implement and monitor their development. Both these indices are designed to assess the quality of life of citizens in 100 smart cities and 14 million-plus cities. The index is an initiative to assess liveability of cities as compared to global and national benchmarks.
The EoLI 2019 will carry out assessment on three pillars: quality of life, economic ability and sustainability, which are further divided into 14 categories across 50 indicators.
For the first time, as part of EoLI, a citizen perception survey is being conducted on behalf of the ministry. The survey opened on February 1 and will end on February 29. Meanwhile, face-to-face interviews are also on. Participating cities have been divided into three categories based on their population.
The citizen participation survey is an important part of the assessment as it will help in capturing the assessment of citizens with respect to the quality of life in their cities. Apart from this, quality of life has 35% weightage, economic ability has 15% and sustainability has 20%.
There are questions covering health, environment, safety, green cover, power supply, infrastructure, transportation, drinking water and sanitation among other things.
As on Sunday, only around 8,000 Mumbaikars had given their feedback.
“At least 2% of the population is expected to give feedback, which means we need two to five lakh people to vote. In a city like Mumbai where people take to Twitter to voice their opinions, we appeal to them to spend two minutes to express this opinion in the survey,” said a senior civic official.
An internet connection is all that is needed to fill out multiple-choice questions, the official said. “We now need one lakh people to vote per day in the next four days but if Mumbaikars decide, they can do it.”
The BMC has submitted the application for EoLI. The results will be announced later this year.
In EoLI 2018, the results of which were announced in September 2018, Mumbai stood first among mega cities and third overall.
Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray has appealed to people to vote.
Doing your bit
Actor Suneil Shetty tweeted, “Everyone has worked very hard to improve our Mumbai city. Such low participation reflects very poorly on the entire city. This survey is beyond BMC, and pertains to Mumbai, and we must do our bit for our city.”
Actor Ajay Devgan had tweeted on Saturday, “Proud to be a Mumbaikar? Unleash your roar and vote for @smartmumbaicity in the #EaseofLiving2019 Visit http://bit.ly/SmartMumbai and vote for Greater Mumbai now! #MyMumbaiMyPride.”
People can log on to https://eol2019.org/citizenfeedback to vote.
