The residents of Ranchi may not accept it easily but according to the Union housing and urban affairs ministry, Patna is a better place to live in.

The ease of living index (EoLI) released by Hardeep Singh Puri, the Union minister of state for housing and urban affairs, in New Delhi on Thursday placed Ranchi at the 42nd spot in the country while Patna occupied the 33rd place on the list of cities with over a million population.

While Bangalore was adjudged the best city, Dhanbad is the only other city of Jharkhand that found a mention at 48th place in the list of 49 such cities.

Even in respect of municipal performances in which Indore was adjudged as the best city in the country, Patna at the 16th spot was better placed than Ranchi that got 39th spot. Even Dhanbad was better than Ranchi at 35th spot.

The EoLI was assessed for 111 cities that had over a million population in July 2019 and participated in the assessment exercise in 2020 that aimed at measuring quality of life and impact of various initiatives taken for urban development.

Compared to 66.70 points scored by the topper, Bangalore, Patna had a score of 53.26 points while Ranchi and Dhanbad had 50.31 and 46.96 respectively.

“EoLI provides a comprehensive understanding of participating cities across India based on quality of life, economic ability of a city and its sustainability and resilience,” said a release issued by housing ministry.

“They may have certain parameters for assessing service delivery system but I still find Ranchi is a better place to live in than Patna because of its climate and well mannered people,” said Mrinmoy Roy, a retired central government employee who lives in Ranchi but was once posted in Patna.