Delhi only half-way to prosperity in global list: UN

Poor infrastructure and environment have pulled down the Capital's ranking on 'State of the World's Cities' list to 58, putting Delhi among cities with "medium-level" prosperity.

The UN-Habitat on Wednesday released the 'State of the World's Cities' report, which analyses the prosperity of 95 cities on productivity, quality of life, infrastructure, environment and equity.

Country's financial capital, Mumbai, is placed six points higher at 52.

"Two Indian cities come under Group 4 and they are in the medium level (of prosperity). Prosperity is not just economic prosperity, but the kind of infrastructure and the quality of life in a city. Both the cities have been penalised for poor environment conditions, especially New Delhi," Edvardo Lopez Moreno, Chief Researcher of the report, said.

According to the report, public transport accounts for only 22 per cent of urban trips in India, where the number of private vehicles is increasing rapidly. Most of the private vehicles, the report says, are concentrated in a few cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore, "which host five per cent of India's population but 14 per cent of registered vehicles".

Moreno said when compared to Delhi, Mumbai is doing "far better" on all the five indicators. "The transportation and environment sector is better in Mumbai than Delhi. However, the indicators have their limitations. Quality of life in Mumbai is still better than Delhi," he said.

He said most of the jobs in Mumbai and Delhi are being taken away by the unorganised sector and this needs to be corrected.

The report says in the recent past, Delhi has joined the league of "meta-cities" (those with massive conurbation of more than 20 million people).

"It is expected that by 2020, another three Asian cities — Beijing, Dhaka and Mumbai — will have reached the 20 million mark," the report says.

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