Jagran.com Launches Campaign to Measure City Liveability Index

Jagran.com– the Hindi news and information website of Jagran New Media has recently launched a new citizen connect initiative – ‘My City My Pride’- to measure and drive development of cities in an interactive way through public participation. With growing development, rapid industrialization and influx of people, there is a need to quantify the liveability of emerging cities and take timely corrective actions. The key objective of the campaign is to produce data driven insights that will help raise citizen awareness and generate ideas of change through collaboration leading to an actionable plan for development of cities.

During the first stage, the program will invite citizens toscoretheir respective cities acrossfive fundamentalpillars- health, infrastructure, economy, education and safety. These scores will be analysed by Process Advisors and Evaluators – KPMG (Registered), which is one of the knowledge partners in this initiative. Towards the end of this stage, a City Liveability Survey Report will be published in partnership with KPMG. Another Knowledge Partner to this initiative – International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), will help in planning and recommending relevant content, using Data Driven approach in a user friendly format.

This will be followed by collaboration stage, wherein through public participation, theinfluencers from each city for every pillar, will meet, interact and discuss, to find workable solutions towards the identified problems presented in the report. During the last stage, an actionable plan will be jointly worked out by the city influencers and the local administration. The same will be announced on a public forum, where it would then be handed over to the local administration body for on ground implementation.

My City My Pride originated from a thought of introducing a sense of positivity amongst the citizens and getting them together to bring about a change. With the combined amplification strength of Facebook, Jagran.com, Dainik Jagran and Radio City, the platform aspires to be an effective catalyst of change for betterment of people. The multi-phased program will be rolled out across 10 cities during phase one. These cities are Ludhiana, Dehradun, Lucknow, Kanpur, Meerut, Varanasi, Patna, Ranchi, Raipur and Indore.

Commenting on the launch of this new campaign, Apurva Purohit, President – Jagran Prakashan Ltd. said, “Being cognizant of our responsibility to be enablers of change, with this initiative we aim to provide robust data driven insights and help solve civic problems at a local level. The idea is to encourage city development in an interactive way through public participation – since no one knows a city better than its citizens. We hope that this platform will act as a catalyst for change by bringing together citizens and administrators, thereby forming communities that identify core issues and develop solutions for a better city”

Commenting on the initiative, Mr Bharat Gupta, CEO Jagran New Media said, “As a media organization, we are the voice of the people, and so we want to provide them a platform where they raise their concerns and we can find a solution to their problems in a collaborative way. My City My Pride is one such initiative from Jagran New Media, where we are engaging users using online and offline media and enable action through user participation.”

"Editorial products are most useful to users when they are built to go deep, instead of wide," said Mr Nasr ul Hadi, Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), one of the knowledge partners on this project. Adding to his statement, Mr Hadi said, “A database or any relevant tool at the core — in this case, the annual City Liveability Survey — is an opportunity to solve a utility for users and keep them coming back. Community events as the crust of the product will help users organise around the issue, and include stakeholders who can move the needle, especially industry experts and policy makers. Quality journalism will serve as the glue that holds all this together. My City My Pride could be the first time Hindi media executes this data-led core-content-community model effectively”.

Commenting on the initiative, Mr Girish Menon, Partner KPMG said, “The objective of My City My Pride is to take public opinion based on survey participant’s experience with intention of highlighting civic matters that need improvement in each city. It is important to address civic matters in order to make progress as a society. With this activity, it is expected thatkey issues faced by the local inhabitants are likely to be highlighted to the administration to assist them in taking necessary measures. As Process Advisors and Evaluators for My City My Pride, KPMG will observe the process and facilitate in making a report to highlight results.”