Citizen’s participation sought to remove Kohima’s ‘unliveable city’ tag

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Feb. 1 (EMN): The officials of Kohima Smart City Development Ltd. (KSCDL) have asked citizens of Nagaland to take active participation in the assessment for the Ease of Living (EOL) index, by giving their feedback for a better ranking.

Addressing the media during a press conference in Kohima on Saturday, they informed that the weightage of EOL index were 30% citizens perception, 35% quality of live, 15% economic ability and 20% sustainability. Quality of life includes assessing social wellbeing, economic ability includes economic robustness and sustainability includes managing urban spaces.

In the first assessment, Kohima town was adjudged the ‘second most unliveable city’ in India ranking 110th out of 111 cities on August 13, 2018 on the EOL index conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

“In this second edition of the same exercise, we are hopeful that our ranking will definitely be better,” they commented. The KSCDL officials admitted that they had “failed badly” in the category of 30% citizens participation as they were not aware about it.

“It can be a negative or positive remark but citizens' participation is very much necessary for a better ranking,” they said.

They informed that hoardings, posters and different other exercises will be installed to spread awareness but “the participation should come out directly from the citizens” by logging in to the website Eol2019.org/citizenfeedback.

They also stated that this assessment is to make citizens aware of their own city and to be ready for future preparation.

The officials mentioned another aspect that unless the government departments and other agencies provide them with data, they will not be able to furnish all the requirements that the ministry is asking for and hoped that they will be provide with the required data and information.

The key objectives of EOL index are to generate information to guide evidence-based policymaking, catalyse action to achieve broader developmental outcomes including the sustainable development goals, assess and compare the outcomes achieved from various urban policies and schemes, and to obtain the perception of citizens about their view of the services provided by the city administration.

They also stressed on how land availability is the issue in Kohima because even if there is fund, the government is struggling to find space to build parks and other projects.