Trivandrum Retains Top Slot in Governance Ranking

Introduction

New Governance index ranking list is out with few surprises. In 2016, for which the list was compiled by February 2017, national capital slips two points to 9^th position while southern city of Thiruvananthapuram retaining the top position. This index was prepared after a survey of 21 major cities across the country, covering a total of 18 states. This exercise was part of the Annual Survey of India’s City-System (ASIS) that evaluated major Indian states for this purpose. In this blog post, we will see the salient features of this survey compilation and their importance in the modern context for the benefit of readers.

City Governance Index

A non-profit organization by the name Janagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (JCCD) had undertaken a survey of Indian citizens from across the country to know about the governance in their respective states. As part of this exercise, a total of 21 major cities spread across 18 states across the country were covered.   As per the rules of this exercise, a city scores better if it is able to deliver a better quality of life to its citizens over the medium and longer periods of time. After Thiruvananthapuram, Pune occupied the second spot, followed by Kolkata at the third spot. In this survey, the Indian cities scored between 2.1 and 4.4 on a 10-point scale. The team that compiled the data set the cities such as London (9.3) and New York (9.8) as the benchmark cities for comparison purpose. These low scores imply that the Indian cities need to strengthen their City-Systems by updating their policies and quality of law being enforced to deliver a better quality of life for their citizens. This is a way to tell the politicians and officials what people in cities want or expect from them to do.

ASICS Report

This report is designed to help city dwellers point out issues in the urban governance in cities across the country. This enables the leaders in these cities to use these inputs to update the reform roadmap to make the city-based societies more liveable. The city-based societies are in modern civics termed as City-Systems. These are frameworks that channel the manpower and money for overall development. They consist of four distinct but inter-related parts, such as urban planning and design; urban capacities and resources; empowered and legitimate political representation and transparency, accountability and participation. Using these components, the governance can be made accountable to the people on daily basis.