The cities that follow Pune
on the list are Kolkata,
Thiruvananthapuram and
Bhubaneswar, each with a
score of 4.6 out of 10.
Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and
Urban Transformation (AMRUT),
including appointing an internal
auditor, getting a credit rating,
providing internship opportunities
and publishing e-newsletters.
Other measures include improving
the revenue-to-expenditure ratio and
per-capita capital expenditure over
the last three years and making
the digital governance roadmap
and municipal data available on
an online platform.
The cities that follow
Pune on the list are Kolkata,
Thiruvananthapuram
and
Bhubaneswar, each with a score
of 4.6 out of 10. Surat made a
massive jump to 5th place this
year, while Bhubaneswar stood
out after moving to 4th place from
10th place earlier.
"Surat was the biggest gainer
in this year’s rankings, jumping
12 positions over 2016 to the
5th spot. This was on the back of
improved performance on own
revenue generation, higher capital
expenditure per capita by the city and
implementation of AMRUT reforms
including appointment of an internal
auditor and credit rating," said Vivek
Anandan Nair, Associate Manager
and Project Lead for ASICS 2017.
The overall quality of governance,
however, remained fairly low with 12
out of 23 cities scoring less than 4.
Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Dehradun,
Patna and Chennai constituted
the bottom five cities on the list,
with scores in the range of 3.0-3.3.
The performance of Guwahati and
Visakhapatnam, which were added
to the survey only this year, was
disappointing. The two cities finished
with scores of 3.8 and 3.4, respectively.
The low scores only underline the
fact that Indian cities are grossly
under-prepared to efficiently deal
with recurring floods, garbage crises,
fire accidents, building collapses, air
pollution and outbreaks of vector-
borne diseases. Lack of proper urban
planning, political representation and
transparency, and accountability in
the system, have resulted in quality
of life deteriorating and may even lead
to an unsustainable life, eventually.
All Indian cities score less than the
global benchmarks of Johannesburg,
London and New York, which scored
7.6, 8.8 and 8.8, respectively. The
gap indicates that these cities still
have a lot of ground to cover when it
comes to governance and providing a
sustainable life to their citizens.
Another concern is that Indian
cities have recorded quite a slow rate
of improvement over the past three
years, with the average of all their
scores improving only 0.5 points to
3.9 over the period.
"This is particularly worrisome,
given the pace at which India is
urbanising and the already poor state
of public service delivery in our cities,"
the report said.
Courtesy : Anupa Kujur
33 | January 2018 | www.smartgovernance.in