Pune Best, Bengaluru Worst Among 23 Cities In Urban Governance

Bengaluru-based Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy has come out with the fifth edition of its Annual Survey of India’s City Systems (ASICS) for the year 2017, which puts Pune at the top among 23 cities in urban governance, Hindustan Times has reported.

The study ranked 23 cities on several factors like urban planning, revenue sources, political representation, transparency etc. on a scale of 10, and Pune came on top with an aggregate score of 5.1 while Bengaluru performed worst with a score of 3.

The survey however, pointed to several structural problems faced by all Indian cities which severely affect their capacity to ensure sustainable high quality of life for their residents.

Indian cities were found to be severely lacking in platforms that citizens can use to engage with authorities and also lacking in political representation with only a few cities like Bhopal, Lucknow and Kanpur having a directly elected mayor.

Cities are also unable generate the funds that are utilised to run them, with cities on an average generating only 39 per cent of the funds utilised by them. Patna only generated 17 per cent of its revenue.

“Bengaluru is a poor outlier among mega-cities primarily on account of weak finances,” said Vivek Anandan Nair, associate manager and project lead of this year’s study.

Globally, cities like London and New York have scored 8.8 on similar benchmarks, demonstrating the relatively poor conditions in even the best governed cites in India.

Among other Indian cities, Kolkata stood at second place and Thiruvananthapuram third – down two places after being ranked at the top two years consecutively. Mumbai was ranked ninth and Chennai was placed 19 on the list. The national capital, Delhi came in at the sixth spot.