To help assess the progress made in cities through various initiatives and empower them to use evidence to plan, monitor their performance, two Assessment Frameworks, viz. Ease of Living Index (EoLI) and Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2019 have been launched by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs.
Both these indices are designed to assess quality of life of citizens in 100 Smart Cities and 14 other Million Plus Cities. With the Municipal Performance Index 2019, the Ministry has sought to assess the performance of municipalities based on five enablers namely Service, Finance, Planning, Technology and Governance which have been further divided into 20 sectors which will be evaluated across 100 indicators. This will help Municipalities in better planning and management, filling the gaps in city administration, and improving the liveability of cities for its citizens.
The key objectives of the Ease of Living Index includes generate information to guide evidence-based policy making; catalyse action to achieve broader developmental outcomes including the SDG; assess and compare the outcomes achieved from various urban policies and schemes and obtain the perception of citizens about their view of the services provided by the city administration.
EoLI 2019 will facilitate the assessment of ease of living of citizens across three pillars: Quality of Life, Economic Ability and Sustainability which are further divided into 14 categories across 50 indicators.
According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, all participating cities have appointed nodal officers whose responsibility is to collect and collate the relevant data points from various departments both within and outside of the ULB and upload the same along with supporting documents in the exclusive web portal designed for this purpose.
Officials said the Ministry has made several provisions for providing assistance to cities in this process of collection, collation and uploading of data. 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 per cent of the marks of the Ease of Living Index).