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Source: The post is based on the article “Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launches 2 key initiatives to take India’s Urban Rejuvenation journey to next level” published in PIB on 28th December 2022
What is the News?
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has launched two key initiatives – City Finance Rankings, 2022 and City Beauty Competition.
What is City Finance Rankings?
Aim: To evaluate, recognize and reward India’s cities (Urban Local Bodies or ULBs) on the basis of the quality of their current financial health and improvement over time in financial performance.
– To motivate city/state officials and decision-makers, to implement municipal finance reforms.
Parameters: The participating ULBs will be evaluated on 15 indicators across three key municipal finance assessment parameters, namely: (i) Resource Mobilization, (ii) Expenditure Performance and (iii) Fiscal Governance.
Categories: The cities will be ranked at the national level on the basis of their scores under any one of the following four population categories: (i) Above 4 million, (ii) Between 1-4 million, (iii) 100K to 1 million, (iv) Less than 100,000.
– The top 3 cities in each population category will be recognized and rewarded at the national level as well as within each state/state cluster.
Significance: City Finance Rankings are an effort to analyze and help the ULBs in identifying areas in their financial performance where they can make further improvements, to be able to deliver quality infrastructure and services to its citizens.
– The rankings will serve as a constant motivation for city/state officials to continue to implement municipal finance reforms.
– At a state- and national level, the rankings will highlight the outcomes achieved by municipalities and provide critical insights to key policymakers into the state of finances of urban local bodies.
What is the City Beauty Competition?
Aim: To encourage and recognize the transformational efforts made by cities and wards in India to create beautiful, innovative and inclusive public spaces.
Parameters: Wards and public places of cities would be judged against the five broad pillars (i) accessibility, (ii) amenities, (iii) activities, (iv) aesthetics and (v) ecology.
Voluntary: Participation in the City Beauty Competition is voluntary. However, all wards and cities are encouraged to participate, as this would generate healthy competition amongst them, while also inculcating a sense of community ownership & pride.
Significance: The City Beauty Competition would facilitate the most beautiful wards and beautiful public places at the city level.
