Ease of Living

Ease of Living refers to the whole quality of life that individuals and communities experience, encompassing economic, social, environmental, and cultural variables.

It is a term that is frequently used to assess the livability of a city or country.

Ease of Living: Significance

The importance of Ease of Living stems from its capacity to provide a comprehensive picture of the quality of life that individuals and communities enjoy.

It serves as an indicator for progress:

• Ease of Living serves as a progress indicator, allowing policymakers to assess how effective their policies and programmes are in enhancing residents quality of life.
• Policymakers can assess which places require more attention and resources by considering metrics such as access to essential services, housing affordability, and safety.
• This can assist them in making informed judgements about where to direct their efforts to produce better outcomes for citizens.
• As a result, Ease of Living is a key tool for policymakers to use in assessing the impact of their activities and adjusting their methods as necessary.

It helps in the prioritization of public investments:

• The Ease of Living Index offers policymakers with a clear insight of their city’s or country’s strengths and shortcomings in terms of the quality of life that inhabitants enjoy.
• Policymakers can identify areas that require immediate attention and distribute resources accordingly by analyzing the Ease of Living rankings.
• Policymakers may guarantee that resources are used in the most effective and efficient way possible by using the Ease of Living scores to inform resource allocation decisions.
• This can aid in addressing the most serious challenges confronting citizens and improving their overall quality of life.

It attracts investments:

• Investors and businesses are drawn to cities and nations that provide a high standard of living for their employees and their families.
• Policymakers may create a more appealing environment for investors and businesses by investing in infrastructure, services, and amenities that improve the Ease of Living.
• When investors and businesses are drawn to a city or country, they bring new employment, new technologies, and new ideas with them, which can boost economic growth and generate new opportunities for inhabitants.
• This can contribute to a virtuous cycle of economic growth, job creation, and enhanced quality of life that benefits the entire community.

Ease of living: Index

The Ease of Living Index (EoLI) is a tool for assessing the quality of life and the impact of various urban development efforts. It is released by the Ministry of housing and urban affairs. The Ease of Living 2020 appears as the second edition of the Ease of Living Index.

It was created after incorporating findings from the previous study and broadening its reach to reinforce its framework by incorporating the Municipal Performance Index.

The Ease of Living Index 2020 includes both social and economic components, measuring quality of life holistically across characteristics such as education, health, housing, water and sanitation, waste management, mobility, safety, and recreation. In addition to assessing these cities’ economic capabilities to provide opportunities, the index investigates how India’s urban spaces access green spaces while developing resilience.

The main objective of the Ease of Living Index are as follows:

• Initiate action to achieve broader developmental results including the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Gather data to inform evidence-based policymaking.
• Evaluate and compare the effects of various urban policies and programmes.
• Obtain citizens’ perceptions of the services offered by the city government and use this as a foundation for communication between them.

Parameters of the Ease of living Index:

The Ease of Living Index assesses the well-being of Indian inhabitants in 111 cities based on four parameters: Quality of Life, Economic Ability, Sustainability, and inhabitants Perception Survey. In total, 49 indicators were studied in over 14 categories.

Figure 1: Ease of Living Framework (Courtesy:  Ease of living report )

• The first pillar on “Quality of Life” reveals a grasp of the various factors that contribute to a decent urban existence.
  • The purpose has been to examine a holistic view of the quality of life in India’s big cities by analyzing provisions for needs such as inexpensive housing, access to clean water, basic education, healthcare facilities, safety and security, and recreation avenues.
  • It accounts for 35% of the overall index score.
• The second pillar of “Economic Ability” assesses citizens’ economic well-being by assessing the level of economic development and inequities they face in a given city.
  • This pillar contributes 15% to the overall index score.
• The third pillar assesses “Sustainability” in terms of green space availability, green building promotion, energy usage, the quality of natural resources such as air and water, and the city’s ability to endure natural calamities.
  • It holds a weightage of 20% in the final index score.
• The Citizen Perception Survey (CPS) was undertaken to further enhance the index. It provides citizens’ perceptions and allows them to assess the amount and quality of development in their individual cities.
  • Furthermore, the survey serves as a source for validating the index’s findings and determining whether they correspond to the results of the data provided by the cities.
  • The CPS pillar accounts for 30% of the overall index score.

Ease of Living Index : Performance

• The combined score of the 111 cities participating in this index is 53.51.
• Cities have been divided into two categories based on population size: cities with over a million people (or million+ cities) and cities with fewer than a million people (or fewer than Million cities).
• According to the data, Bengaluru has led the first category, and Shimla has topped the second.
• Bengaluru was followed in the index by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, and Surat. 49 cities were listed in the “million-plus population category.” Out of these, Delhi was ranked 13th, with Srinagar at the bottom.
• Indian cities scored an average of 53.51 on the Ease of Living Index, which runs from 0 (worst-case scenario) to 100 (best-case scenario).
• Cross-country Comparison:
• Some factors, such as access to education (70.7), housing and shelter (79.5), and safety and security (86.7), have significantly improved the national average score for the Quality-of-Life pillar of 51.38. A high score in these categories demonstrates synergy between national and state programmes aimed at expanding access to excellent education and housing.
• The low national average Economic Ability scores of 13.17 indicate the possibility for India’s metropolitan centres to evolve into economic growth and prosperity hubs capable of providing robust livelihood options and fostering a thriving cosmopolitan culture in these locations.
• Sustainability has a high national average of 53.63 since average scores in areas like City-Resilience (91.59) and Energy Consumption (65.05) have skewed the average to the positive. National and state-level measures supporting the use of renewable energy, such as solar power, have contributed to the high Energy Consumption rankings. Local governments have improved the sustainability pillar’s scores by increasing urban resilience to natural catastrophes by incorporating individuals, communities, and institutions at the municipal level.
• Citizen Perception Survey: This survey was conducted to help authenticate citizens’ experiences with service delivery in their city. The highest CPS score was in Bhubaneswar, followed by Silvassa, Davangere, Kakinada, Bilaspur, and Bhagalpur.

Figure 2:  National Average scores across pillars and categories in Ease of Living Index (Courtesy: Ease of living report)

Region-level Analysis: The states and union territories have been divided into six regions, which are as follows:

• Northern states include Chandigarh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, NCT Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.
• Southern states include Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and Telangana
• Western states include Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu.
• Central region includes Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
• Eastern states includes Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Sikkim. Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura are in the north-east.The Western area has the greatest Ease of Living score aggregate of 56.75, followed by the South (54.38), North (52.59), Central (52.72), East (50.75), and finally the North-East (50.10) regions.

Ease of Living: International best practices

• Human Development Index (HDI): The HDI is a composite index that assesses a country’s average achievements in three areas of human development: living a long and healthy life, having access to education, and having an acceptable standard of living.
• Better Life Index: It is an interactive tool created by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that allows users to compare well-being across nations based on 11 well-being variables such as housing, education, and work-life balance.
• SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals): The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a series of 17 goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to end poverty, safeguard the environment, and secure peace and prosperity for all people. The SDGs address a variety of well-being issues, including access to basic services, environmental sustainability, and economic growth.
• The Global Liveability Index by the Economic Intelligence Unit assesses the most livable cities based on 30+ qualitative and quantitative parameters divided into five categories: stability (25%), healthcare (20%), culture and environment (25%), education (10%), and infrastructure (20%). The factors are classified as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, unpleasant, or intolerable.