India’s top metros

A new Indicus Analytics study p rovides a wealth of information on city life. We cull education, careers, secur ity and entertainment across India’s top metros

Udayan Ray
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A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is a type of great idea. Rome represents conquest; faith hovers over Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, art.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), British statesman


India also has its share of great cities that conjure up distinct images in one’s mind. If Delhi reflects a rich tradition arising from its seven historical cities, it’s the bindaas attitude and indomitable spirit of the Mumbaikar, while it is the zest for celebrating life for Kolkata inhabitants. We can go on talking about Indian cities, since the list is long—there are 5,180 cities in the country where approximately one in every three Indians reside. The largest Indian cities are also among the most populous in the world. Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai are third, ninth, fourteenth, thirty-first, thirty-second and thirty-ninth in the list of world’s most populous cities. But are these also the best places to live? Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.” So, what makes a city a great place to live in? Is it its denizens, climate, history and culture and amenities? One would suspect that the long list of essential attributes would not only have these but contain many more.

Himanshu Desai 34
Artist and Musician, Mumbai
When Desai came to Mumbai in 2002 along with his artist wife Bindu Mehra, now 39, he was penniless. Within a month he got a well-paying job as an art gallery curator. By 2004, he had done well enough to organise art shows of his works and of others.

“The work ethic of the city is superb, even though the infrastructure is in doldrums. There is so much honesty in the average citizen. You don’t have to haggle with auto and taxi drivers.”


Mass Affluent and the Quality of Life

The quality of life in Indian cities is deeply rooted in reality for the mass affluent Indian. There is a deluge of options coming up across the country, be it for jobs or business opportunities, thanks to a rapidly growing economy. This is putting in place a primary driver for inter-city relocations. Today, it is not unusual for a Delhi-based analyst taking up work in a Chennai-based KPO or a Bangalore-based engineer joining a Mumbai-based pharma company. The pay and the career growth prospects are making relocations worthwhile. But with multiple work options based in different cities on offer, quality of life, though a secondary factor, is becoming rather important during choice making. This is making determinants of quality of life important be it law and order, availability of educational facilities or availability of entertainment options.

“City Skyline of India 2006”. How does one compare quality of life across various Indian cities? Credible information is not freely available. That is why Outlook Money, in this edition, is exclusively presenting major findings of “City Skyline of India 2006” by Delhi-based economic research firm Indicus Analytics, a study that, among other things, ranks top 100 Indian cities on quality of living parameters.

Arvind Bhardwaj 42
Head, Advanced Engineering, Ashok Leyland, Chennai
Born and brought up in Chennai, Bhardwaj returned to the city in 1999, taking a 50 per cent pay cut from his General Motors job, to be with his city-based parents. Considerably reduced commute time, either for work or recreation, besides good educational facilities for his three daughters, endear the city to him.
“Life is so much simpler to live in Chennai. It has a small town feel with the attractions of a big city.”


Quality of Life Ranked

“City Skyline of India 2006” comprehensively assesses top 100 cities on the basis of three indices: (a) city earning index (b) city investing index and (c) city residing index. These indices have been constructed by including various parameters (See: Evaluating The Invaluable, page 52) whose data has been taken from publicly available sources such as the census publications and responses to an online survey conducted in June 2006, covering 10,000 respondents across India. The study rates the cities according to their scores on the indices.

For finding out the quality of life in Indian cities, earning and residing indices, along with their constituent parameters, are the best measures since these are the secondary factors that people mostly evaluate while considering relocation. We present below the rankings for the top 50 cities for which the study has done the most detailed analysis (See: Urban Matrix). While going through the rankings here, it is important for us to remember that they are for top 50 cities. These rankings change when you consider the 100 top cities.

The results. The study throws up very interesting outcomes. For instance, relatively smaller towns beat their larger counterparts in quality of life. Mumbai, the highest ranked metro in the city residing index, lags Kochi, Salem, Ghaziabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirappalli and Indore respectively. Superior law and order and in some cases educational infrastructure can explain much of this. In terms of the very large and prominent cities, Mumbai is the highest ranked followed by Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Delhi. Since most of Outlook Money’s readers reside in these five cities, we take a more detailed look at what the study reveals about the quality of life there.






Delhi

If you go by the rankings, the capital city is a great place to earn a living when compared to the other five, with its earning index ranking of seven surpassed only by Bangalore. However, the rankings tell us that Delhi is not such a great place to live with its rank of 48, which is very near the bottom. The high earning index is explained by brisk growth in employment as well as creation of new tech-related jobs reflected by employment advertisements. But what really pulls Delhi down is its inadequate engineering education facilities (rank: 45) and high degree of crime against women as a percentage of total crime (rank: 48). “It is not a great city to go out alone, nor is it a great city to use public transport on your own. Respect for women is lacking here,” says Sudipta Sengupta, 34, senior general manager, Café Coffee Day who has just relocated back to Delhi from Mumbai after six years. The reason: her husband Marut Sengupta, 33 was transferred to Delhi. “Senior citizens are also quite unsafe,” continues Sudipta who lives with her in-laws and her mother who now detest the restrictions on their movements in the new city.

Sudipta Sengupta 34
Senior General Manager, Café Coffee Day, Delhi
Sudipta relocated to Delhi one month ago after her husband’s transfer from Mumbai. Among the city’s positives, she considers the city’s wide roads to be the best among the metros, loves the large homes available and the packed calendar for art events.
“Respect for women is lacking in the city. It is not a great city to go out alone in, nor for using public transport on your own”


But is living in Delhi that bad? Sudipta, who did her MBA from Delhi University’s Faculty of Management Studies during 1994-96, loves many aspects of the city.

Having been brought up in Kolkata and worked in Mumbai and Bangalore, Sudipta feels that the roads in Delhi are the best in India. “They have improved immensely since I stayed here last,” she says. There are other positives too. “While Mumbai is great for working women, there are long commutes, tiny houses and bad roads. In Delhi, you can get a house of a certain size and be ‘house-proud’,” says Sudipta. She feels that for art lovers the calender is packed with events. Then, there are things that only Delhi can give. “You might be walking in a modern locality and suddenly you might find the remains of an ancient monument. There are walks you can take in the winters in the city’s many parks and, not to forget, the second-hand book bazaar every Sunday at Darya Ganj,” she continues. The rankings also shed light on another redeeming aspect of Delhi—it ranks number one among the 50 cities in the availability of malls and restaurants. It also ranks number two when it comes to places to visit, indicating a very high availability of entertainment options.

In the future, studies like City Skyline 2006 would become more and more important since they would set benchmarks

for city authorities even as they seek capital and skilled manpower. Such studies would also need to compare our cities with top international metropolises, since Indians will increasingly take up job opportunities abroad and people from foreign lands take up employment in India too. It is an imperative of a rapidly freeing and globalised economy. Perhaps then, along with such data, Indians would use the benchmark which American cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead set for a city when she said: “A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again.”