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Gurugram-based integrated real estate startup Square Yards has released a Covid Suitability Index report on Friday.

According to the report titled “Suitability Index: The COVID Perspective”, Gurugram is the most suitable city to live from a Covid perspective as compared to Mumbai and Bengaluru.

The report uses the four prime factors – Population Density, Covid Infected Cases, Hospital Infrastructure and the Open Areas Ratio – and the COVID status to ascertain the suitability of these cities. 

The East zone in Gurugram, the Western and Central suburbs in Mumbai and Mahadevapura zone in Bengaluru were found to be the most suitable to live from a Covid perspective.

The second wave of the coronavirus pandemic overwhelmed the country’s healthcare infrastructure like never before. Both Mumbai and Bengaluru had only 1.3 and 0.30 Covid hospitals available respectively per 10,000 people, as per the report, while Gurugram outshone both with 2.5 hospitals per 10,000 people.

Contrary to common notion, the report suggests that Mumbai has the highest open area ratio amongst the three cities at 45 percent. Mumbai is also the most densely populated at 60,000 people/sq km while Gurugram had the lowest population density at 4,200 people/sq km.

The COVID-suitability heat map for each city suggests that across all cities, suitability increased as people moved away from the city centres and older parts of the city towards more peripheral locations. 

Not only are these cities the top real estate destinations in the country but were also some of the top cities to be severely hit by Covid. This is where the relevance of a Suitability Index kicks in. 

The need for one’s own ‘home’ has gained an all-new dimension since 2020, the report says, due to the changes brought in by the pandemic. This study is an attempt at making the home-buying process in the Covid era slightly more pragmatic.  

It highlights certain meaningful factors that today’s end users need to acknowledge while deciding to buy the right home in a pandemic like situation. These include factors such as population density, open area ratio and hospital infrastructure that could be of far more importance than distance from work or affordability when deciding where you live under the current scenario.