Happiness is Must: Not only development but Andhra Pradesh seeks to measure ‘happiness’
Amravati, April 11: We have read everywhere that Norway has recurrently been elected as ‘Happiest State’. Andhra Pradesh also steps in the footsteps to set up happiness commission to measure ‘happiness’. Speaking at the inauguration of the Happy Cities Summit in Amaravati on Tuesday, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu “in an effort to build momentum towards these goals the state’s new greenfield capital at Amaravati would be planned and developed keeping happiness at the forefront of governance priorities.”
Further, he added, “we want Amaravati to be among the top 3 happiest cities in the world on globally recognized benchmarks.”
Spiritual Guru Sadhguru also said while creating new cities, it’s important to create spaces where people inevitably get engaged with every aspect of life around them.
In April 2017, Andhra Pradesh became the second state in the country, after Madhya Pradesh, to set up a department dedicated to happiness.
“We have already requested several municipalities to earmark some space to organize ‘Happy Sundays’, so that people can come out to a public space and play, dance or sing,” Naidu said. “We used to talk only about development. But governments should focus on happiness too. People need to be able to lead a meaningful life,” he added.
The happiness commission is expected to launch a series of concrete initiatives to achieve these broad, abstract goals. A framework for measuring city happiness will also be launched at the end of the summit.
Borrowing heavily from Bhutan’s Gross National Index, the Thriving Places Index from Bristol, UK, and the Indian government’s Liveability Index, the framework is expected to capture citizens’ freedom to make life choices, extent of safety net, access to clean environment and perceptions of corruption.
In the most recent World Happiness Report released in March 2018, India was ranked 133rd out of 156 countries. Pakistan and Bangladesh were placed at 75 and 115, respectively.