With sprawling IT parks coming up in Chandigarh, which lies adjacent to the satellite towns of Mohali and Panchkula, demand for awarding the metro status to the city has often come to the fore.
But a study released on Thursday revealed that Chandigarh still lacks on various parameters when compared to Pune, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.
The (Assocham Eco Pulse) AEP Study on “The 7th emerging metro city in India” analysed four tier-II cities including Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Chandigarh ranking them on eight parameters required for acquiring the status of metro city. They include social infrastructure, infrastructure availability, real estate cost and availability, transportation facility (connectivity), presence of quality educational institutes, employment opportunity, facility of financial services and business environment.
As per the analysis, Pune occupied first position though it needs to improve on transportation, social infrastructure and financial services.
Ahmedabad was the second most potential city providing good infrastructure and facilities and connectivity. Lucknow was placed with third rank as it needs to pick up on infrastructure, business environment and social infrastructure.
Chandigarh, the smallest city among the four in terms of area and population was ranked at the fourth position though it was ranked foremost in financial services and business environment.
The AEP study said Pune was set to join the league of six metropolitan cities in India with the development pace catching up fast in providing infrastructure facilities, friendly business environment, education avenues and employment opportunities. At present, there are six metro cities in India including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The rising appeal of Pune is evident from its highest real estate prices and maximum population among the other upcoming cities.
Among the four cities, Ahmedabad occupied first rank on the parameter of social infrastructure. The city with literacy rate of 79.89% has high grade institutes like IIM, NID, NIFT, EDII etc. Lucknow with a literacy rate of 83.5% and presence of quality educational institutes including IIM, SGPGIMS etc was placed at second position. Both Pune and Chandigarh were assigned 3rd positions respectively on the social infrastructure parameter.
Chandigarh has prominent institutes like Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Centre for Defence and National Strategic Studies (CDNSS) etc but Pune with maximum number of malls and multiplexes (26) and star category hotels (25) notched the top position. The second rank was occupied by Ahmedabad, with the city having 25 malls and multiplexes and 17 star category hotels.
Chandigarh and Lucknow was placed at 3rd and 4th position respectively. Pune has outpaced the other three cities on the parameter of real estate prices and availability. After Pune, Chandigarh is considered to be the next emerging real estate market. Ahmedabad occupied 3rd rank while Lucknow at the bottom position was considered as most time consuming city in terms of process for acquiring land.