A nation-wide survey on Indian urban living has shown Mumbai topping the list of 21 cities with Thiruvananthapuram finding a top spot followed by Kolkata and Pune.

Chandigarh, often hailed as India’s most planned urban landscape, comes last in the third edition of the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS).

The survey, conducted by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, highlighted systemic inadequacies in urban governance and is based on “actual governance”, and not popular perception.

Based on 83 parameters, the survey ranks these cities on a scale of zero to 10, with all cities remaining under 5 in overall score, and only a few going past the halfway mark in different parameters, such as urban planning, urban capacities and resources, empowered and legitimate political representation, and transparency, accountability and participation.

While Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram scored 4.2, Kolkata-Pune shared 4.1, Chandigarh scored the lowest — 2. Delhi finished with 3.7, and was tied with Bhopal.

The global benchmarks for the survey were New York (9.7) and London (9.4).

“These scores imply that Indian cities are grossly under-prepared to deliver high quality of life that is sustainable in the long term,” the survey report said.

A Janaagraha official noted that Indian cities go for band-aid solutions like creating more landfills, filling pot holes, desilting drains ahead of monsoons that do not address the root causes, which have made Indian cities what they are today.