The current government has mentioned ‘ease of living’ a few times in the last two years.
That interested me because if it meant ‘quality of life’ in terms of public spaces, waterfronts, air pollution, urban transport and the like, it’s never been an area of focus for India’s governments, certainly not at the highest levels, despite these being historically extraordinarily badly developed and maintained.
I first came across this a couple of years ago, without any context of what it meant in the government’s context:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his ministers to tell the people how his government has worked for improving their ease of living.
Government has worked to ease living conditions of people, November 2017
In 2018, we begin to get some idea
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday night that his government is working hard to make the life of citizens easier with the mantra of “minimum government, maximum governance”… Modi said his government has scraped 1400-1450 outdated laws, made procedures simple… The Prime Minister said that his government is developing next generation infrastructure in the country keeping in mind the needs of 21st century… our government used direct benefit transfer scheme and saved over Rs 57,000 crore of money which could have gone into wrong hands… his government had introduced insurance for 10 crore poor families which can avail benefit of five lakh rupees annually.
Working hard to promote ease of living with minimum government, maximum governance, February 2018
In 2019, there are several references to the term in public (January, April, December), along with a sense of the main thrust – a reduction in unnecessary regulation:
“The Prime Minister made the point that governance should be what makes life easier for citizens. He used the example of Uber, which he said has ensured that people are not dependent solely on the public transport system and made their lives easier, and that of private mobile companies which gave people options other than the department of post and telegraph,” said a source who was present in the meeting. “The focus, he said, should be on ease of living for people and not to get into all aspects of their lives.”
PM Modi to Secretaries: Focus on ease of living for people, June 2019
The point about the need for government to be a “development authority” rather than a “regulatory authority” was also made by one of the secretaries present, who highlighted the fact that the government is saddled with several rules that cannot be implemented, so there is a need for the government to “get out of the system”.
Then, on Independence Day
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ease of living as his government’s next goal. Now, India doesn’t need an incremental growth, but a high jump… the aim of the government is to ensure ease of living in India along with ease of doing business. “I always ask this question..can we not reduce the interference of Governments in people’s lives? Let our people have the freedom to follow their own aspirations… Earlier, people were happy with merely a plan to make a railway station. Now people ask- when will Vande Bharat Express come to my area. People do not want only good railway stations or bus stations, they ask- when is a good airport coming.
After Ease of Business jump, Ease of Living is Modi’s real goal, Financial Express, August 2019
So. Not exactly the commitment to quality of life I’d been looking forward to, but a move to smaller, less interfering government, which is also welcome. It’ll help getting specifics on what regulations the government’s done away with to improve ‘ease of living’.