Janaagraha's ASICS

In sharp contrast with the findings of the first Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems, Surat and Ahmedabad topped the list of 11 cities in the public survey on quality of life and city-system. In the Voice of India’s Citizens Survey, Kanpur was rated as the worst city to live in.
For the citizens’ survey, 4200 people across eleven cities were interviewed and asked to rate the quality of life in the city. Transport, cleanliness, availability of clean drinking water, public amenities, pollution control and greenery, crime and safety and ease of process in government offices were found to be the main concerns of citizens. Pune, Ahmedabad and Surat were seen to be the top three cities to live in.
“People had little problem in dealing with government officials in Pune. On the other hand, the maximum problems were faced by people in Kanpur,’’ said Srikanth Viswanathan of Janaagraha. Pune was also rated as the safest and one of the most green cities.
“As for quality of life, despite all the infrastructure problems, citizens rated Pune as the second best city to live in. Kanpur, however, was slammed all around. “It indicates that certain cities have fundamentally good policies, institutions and structures in place but need to be backed by requisite capacities, resources and an accountability mechanism,’’ said Viswanathan.
Significantly, on the factor of cleanliness, Delhi, Bangalore and Kanpur are seen to have poor standards and were rated as very dirty. “The mechanism to ensure that garbage is cleared from garbage dumps on time and that sweepers come on time etc is missing. The civic agencies have not been able to put in place an effective waste disposal system in these cities,” said Viswanathan.
Experts say the findings of the people’s perception survey are an eye-opener as cities which were rated low in the main survey notched up a big score here.
“People in Surat and Ahmedabad are happy with the present arrangement. At present, the system is working perfectly. But our main focus is whether it is prepared for the future. The government and local bodies need to systematically plan development,’’ he said.

In all cities, transport and clean drinking water emerged as the main concerns of the citizens. Despite Metro, Delhi was ranked 6th and Mumbai 4th in the mobility system category. The government is planning flyovers and underpasses to ease the traffic problems but these are temporary solutions. They are not focusing on finding permanent solutions, pointed out Vishwanathan.
While the main survey ranked Kolkata as the number one city in urban planning, people voted for Ahmedabad. Instead of Delhi, people rooted for Surat for having good urban resources. Again Surat came out on the top in transparency and accountability.