Quality of Life in the City of Delhi: An Assessment Based on Access to Basic Services

Soc Indic Res (2014) 117:459487 DOI 10.1007/s11205-013-0355-2

Preeti Kapuria

Accepted: 1 April 2013 / Published online: 17 July 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The quality of life is a fundamental aspect of development and advancement of human societies. However, measuring and expressing the quality of life in any given setting has proved difcult because it includes multiple dimensions. Further, methods based on questionnaire surveys have to contend with responses that are inexact and difcult to quantify. Here I estimate the quality of life of people living in the Indian city of Delhi using fuzzy sets theory, an approach that is designed to handle inexact or fuzzy outcomes. Using a stratied random sample set of 330 households, I compare different locations in Delhi based on their access to seven basic services that is assumed to depict the quality of life. I found that the majority of services (in particular, the overall maintenance and transport services) are poor in resettlement colonies, unauthorised colonies, and urbanised villages. The quality of services improves in colonies under the jurisdiction of the Delhi Cantonment Board, the New Delhi Municipal Council, and approved colonies of the Delhi Development Authority. The overall patterns suggest that the differences in satisfaction and access are primarily inuenced by location, and within each location they are inuenced by economic conditions. Over 36 % of Delhis households, which are classied as denitely poor and extremely vulnerable, may be deprived of transport services, around 44 % are deprived of overall maintenance services and over 29 % lack well-maintained green spaces in their neighbourhood. The analysis should draw the attention of policymakers on spatial aspects of development planning.

Keywords Quality of life Fuzzy sets theory Extremely vulnerable

Denitely poor Borda Rule

1 Introduction

Cities with their chaotic and clumsy development are considered a living negation of the concept of good quality of life. In spite of this, our present, and even more our future, is

P. Kapuria (&)

Department of Business Economics, University of Delhi, South Campus, New Delhi 110021, India e-mail: [email protected]

Quality of Life in the City of Delhi: An Assessment Based on Access to Basic Services

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urban. Urban living is seen as preferable even with all its problems and pathologies (overloading,...