No green spaces, sustainable bldgs
MUMBAI: Greater Mumbai ranks 11 out of 49 Indian cities with million-plus populations on sustainability practices in the Centre’s Ease of Living Index 2020. At 61.74, the city scored higher than the national average of 53.63; the highest score of 75 was awarded to Pune. Pimpri Chinchwad and Navi Mumbai scored better in sustainability than Greater Mumbai.
These cities have fared better at providing citizens with green spaces, promoting green buildings and efficient energy consumption, and have better quality of natural resources such as air and water. While Greater Mumbai ranked high on ‘city resilience’, it fared poorly on the other three.
“Findings reveal Pune as the best-performing city in terms of green spaces and buildings. The performance swiftly begins to decline significantly after Karnal (Haryana)... Greater Mumbai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Delhi (…) do not particularly showcase exceptional performance... It indicates a deficiency that has accumulated in urban cities concerning conscious planning to mitigate the risks associated with climate change and the current ecosystem,” the report stated.
Experts, meanwhile, expressed concern over the methodology. They said it has not been adequately explained in MOHUA’S report. “It’s a bit parochial to compare a large metro city like Mumbai with a much smaller one like Pune on any indicator. Ease of Living Index does not provide raw survey data, or adequately explain the structure of their survey, which makes it hard to take these numbers at face value,” said Pankaj Joshi, principal director of the Urban Centre, Mumbai.
He said a more appropriate way to compare sustainability across cities would be through a carbon footprint analysis. “If one can calculate the per capita carbon footprint of two cities, say Mumbai and Pune, then it becomes easier to say which city is more sustainable. It’s a well established method,” he said.
“We are more sustainable than most cities because we have a good public transport system, but that’s about it,” said Debi Goenka, executive trustee, Conservation Action Trust.