HYDERABAD: For the fifth consecutive time, mana Hyderabad bagged the top spot in the Mercer’s Quality of Living (India) Rankings -2019, released globally on Wednesday. The Telangana capital shared the honour with Maharashtra ’s second largest city, Pune – both standing tall at the 143rd position worldwide.Their USPs: significant investment in economic and public infrastructure, availability of a variety of consumables, medical supplies, and movement of local and international talent into the cities.In 2018, the two ‘toppers’ were placed at 142. Their rankings dropped by one place this year, “due to relative movement of surrounding global cities,” stated the report that pronounced the Austrian capital, Vienna, as the most liveable city in the world for the 10th time in a row. Conducted annually, the Mercer survey analyses the living standards of cities, as is perceived internationally, to enable multinational companies and other organisations to suitably compensate their staff on international assignments.The 21st edition of its report has ranked 231 cities in all, with seven from India.On the personal safety scale too – provided separately this time – Hyderabad fared well (it stood at 109), falling only behind Chennai that has been declared as the safest city in India and south-east Asia, with a global rank of 105. This category considered cities’ “internal stability, crime levels, law enforcement, limitations on personal freedom, relationship with other countries and freedom of the press”.Reacting to Hyderabad’s ranking, B V R Mohan Reddy, ex-chairman of Nasscom, said that it was factors such as ease of doing business (speedy approvals and low cost of doing business) and excellent quality of infrastructure – roads, power, traffic, metro rail etc – that worked in its favour. “Education too is at its best,” he added.Perhaps that explains the low rate of attrition in the city, which, according to Telangana’s IT secretary, Jayesh Ranjan, is just about three to four per cent. In Bengaluru, it is as high as 12 to 14 per cent, much like Silicon Valley. “Value proposition on infrastructure is very high here. While Bengaluru and Mumbai also have superior quality infrastructure , it is extremely expensive. Also, Hyderabad has a quality talent pool available locally and a cosmopolitan culture that’s being maintained from the time of the Nizams,” Ranjan said.Urban planner and director of Hyderabad Urban Lab, Anant Maringanti, viewed the ranking appropriate only from the expats point of view. “For resident and domestic migration of professionals, the ease of living ranking done by the ministry of housing and urban development puts towns like Karimnagar and Tirupati above Hyderabad, which stands at 37th rank among 111 cities in India,” he said, adding, “These rankings are merely indicative. They cannot be used for policy making by governments.”