Absence of elected civic body led to low rank: Dohling

SHILLONG: Urban Affairs Minister Hamlet Dohling has said the hill city is pushed to 98th rank in the ‘Ease of Living’ Index because there is no municipal election here.
Talking to The Shillong Times here recently, Dohling said, “There is no elected body of the municipality in Shillong and this is the main problem that has lowered the ranking. We cannot take any measures until we have an elected body.”
The minister informed that civic elections could not be held in all these years due to strong opposition from the public.
Another reason for Shillong’s poor ranking, according to Dohling, is that most of the schools and colleges are not run by the municipal but private bodies and missionaries.
The Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry on Monday released the results of its survey of 111 cities on the ease of living.
The ministry studied quality of life in each city based on parameters like institutional (governance), social (identity, education, health, security), economic ( economy, employment)
and physical (waste water and solid waste management, pollution, housing/inclusiveness, mixed land use, power and water supply.
The top three cities are all in Maharashtra – Pune is ranked the highest followed by Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai. The cities which were ranked the poorest were Patna in Bihar, Kohima in Nagaland and Rampur in Uttar Pradesh.