New Delhi: Leaving behind India's metropolitan business centers such as Mumbai and Bangalore, Hyderabad has emerged as the best city to live in the country, says a global survey.
According to consultancy firm Mercer's ‘Quality of Living Report-2015', Indian cities haven't made much progress on the quality of living scale, scoring nearly the same as they did last year.
The ‘City of Pearls' Hyderabad globally ranks 138th on a list of 230 cities around the world in terms of standard of living.
The list is topped by Vienna for the second consecutive year followed by Zurich, Auckland, and Munich at second, third, and fourth place respectively.
Besides Hyderabad, the list figures seven other Indian cities—Pune (145), Bangalore (146), Chennai (151), Mumbai (152), New Delhi (154) and Kolkata (160).
Dhaka in Bangladesh is ranked 211 and Pakistan's Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi are ranked 191, 199 and 202, respectively.
Hyderabad has emerged as a city of choice due to factors such as improved options for international schools. Additionally, the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is located 22 km from the city and offers a good range of international flights, which improves its ranking on account of public services," the report said.
Mercer, which is a $4 billion turnover US player in talent, health, retirement and investments, conducts its quality of living survey annually to help multinational companies and other employers compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments, the release said.
A quality-of-living or 'hardship' allowance compensates for a decrease in the quality of living between home and host locations, whereas a mobility premium simply compensates for the inconvenience of being uprooted and having to work in another country. The report provides information and hardship premium recommendations for over 440 cities throughout the world and the ranking covers 230 of these cities.
