Delhi a world-class city? No way!

Delhi has to go a long way in becoming a world-class city in terms of quality of living, due to its relatively poor health and sanitation conditions, a recent survey suggests.

New Delhi, which ranks 148th in the 2007 Worldwide Quality of Living Survey conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, "still lags far behind its western counterparts owing to its poor waste removal and sewage systems", Mercer marketing head Neeru Jaitley said.

The survey however, terms the ranking as an "improvement by just two places" for New Delhi with a score of 62.4.

Most Indian cities are densely populated with poor waste removal and sewage systems. These issues, combined with increasing air pollution, contribute to their relatively low ratings, the survey conducted in 215 cities of the world, found.

Overall, Indian cities have also increased their quality of living. Yet, India still requires major investments in the areas of health and sanitation including waste removal, sewage, water potability etc, Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer said.

Zurich bagged the top most position with a rating of 108.1, narrowly out-ranking Geneva. Vancouver and Vienna follow in joint third place, according to the survey.

While Singapore scores highest for overall quality of living in Asia, Dhaka ranks lowest, it added.

Singapore, the leading Asian city for quality of living overall also scores extremely well due to numerous expatriate facilities (restaurants, sports and leisure) and transportation (airport and public transport), Parakatil said.

Cities in Europe, Australia and New Zealand continue to dominate the top end of the rankings for overall quality of living.

The survey shows that war-torn city of Baghdad remains the world's least enticing city for expatriates with a score of 14.5.

Cities are ranked against New York as the base city, which has an index score of 100. The analysis is conducted to help governments and major companies to place employees on international assignments.

The survey was based on an evaluation of 39 quality of living criteria for each city including political, social, economic and environmental factors, personal safety and health, education, transport and other public services.

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