Hyderabad: The City of Pearls has stood best Indian city to live for the fourth consecutive year in latest Mercer Quality of Living Rating 2018 that was released on Tuesday. However, as Pune raised in the chart from last two years, the twin city had to share the slot with Pune. The two cities gained a spot at 142 rank, the highest among the seven Indian cities, including Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi, that featured in the survey.
Hyderabad’s relatively low crime rate and a pleasant weather helped it to become the best place to live. On the other hand, New Delhi ranked the lowest among the Indian cities for the third year in the row due to challenges in traffic and air quality maintenance. “While Hyderabad and Pune have jumped in rankings this year, they have done so relative to other cities, while showing negligible change on factors evaluated,” the report said.
According to the survey, all Indian cities surveyed scored high on factors such as communication and access to food consumables. Meanwhile, on the global basis, Vienna stood first in the list of 450 cities, the ninth consecutive year at the top of the Index. This was followed by Zurich, which ranked second, while Auckland and Munich shared the third spot.
“The results show that Indian cities are yet to make any marked leaps on the quality of living scale, from 2017. However, this is the 20th anniversary of our survey globally and, though few Indian cities have decreased in their ranking, over a 20-year period these cities have been continuously improving their living standards. A key driver has been the considerable investment in physical infrastructure including airports, public transport and communication facilities — among the many factors used to evaluate city living standards,” said Padma Ramanathan, India Practice Leader, Global Mobility, Mercer.