The recently held Annual Survey of India’s City System (ASICS), by a Bengaluru based non-profit Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, revealed that Visakhapatnam stood 17th among 23 cities in the country in terms of governance and capability to deliver urban reforms.
The study which evaluates the quality of governance in cities, in its 2017 edition covered 23 major cities in India across 20 states based on 89 questions. Indian cities scored between 3.0 and 5.1 on 10, with Pune topping the charts for the first time. Other cities that came in the top five include Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar, and Surat, with scores in the range of 4.6 to 4.5. Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Patna, and Chennai constituted the bottom five cities with scores in the range of 3.0 to 3.3 on 10.
Visakhapatnam, with a score of 3.4, was awarded the 17th rank among the cities surveyed. Check the complete list here.
The survey evaluated the scores based on Urban Planning and Design (UPD), Urban Capacity, Resource (UCR), Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation (ELPR), and Transparency, Accountability, and Participation (TAP).
Visakhapatnam when compared to global cities in ASICS 2017
The survey also gave out the scores of global cities like London, New York, and Johannesburg and used them as the benchmarks to compare the scores achieved by the Indian cities. While London and New York stood out with an ASICS 2017 score of 8.8 each, Johannesburg was awarded a score of 7.6. Below is a comparison of Visakhapatnam with these global cities in different parameters.
Urban Planning and Design (UPD)
| City | Score |
| London | 7.9 |
| New York | 8 |
| Johannesburg | 5.3 |
| Visakhapatnam | 2.6 |
Urban Capacity, Resource (UCR)
| City | Score |
| London | 9.7 |
| New York | 9.8 |
| Johannesburg | 8.8 |
| Visakhapatnam | 3.8 |
Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation (ELPR)
| City | Score |
| London | 9.4 |
| New York | 8.8 |
| Johannesburg | 8.8 |
| Visakhapatnam | 2.8 |
Transparency, Accountability, and Participation (TAP)
| City | Score |
| London | 8.2 |
| New York | 8.5 |
| Johannesburg | 7.6 |
| Visakhapatnam | 4.6 |
Discussion about this post