As of September 2025, Mumbai had the highest cost of living among other cities in the country, with an index value of ****. Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi and part of the National Capital Region (NCR) followed it with an index value of ****.  What is cost of living? The cost of living varies depending on geographical regions and factors that affect the cost of living in an area include housing, food, utilities, clothing, childcare, and fuel among others. The cost of living is calculated based on different measures such as the consumer price index (CPI), living cost indexes, and wage price index. CPI refers to the change in the value of consumer goods and services. The wage price index, on the other hand, measures the change in labor services prices due to market pressures. Lastly, the living cost indexes calculate the impact of changing costs on different households. The relationship between wages and costs determines affordability and shifts in the cost of living. Mumbai tops the list Mumbai usually tops the list of most expensive cities in India. As the financial and entertainment hub of the country, Mumbai offers wide opportunities and attracts talent from all over the country. It is the second-largest city in India and has one of the most expensive real estates in the world.

📌 Overview

"Living in India 2025" is a synthetic yet realistic dataset that explores the cost of living and quality of life across 200 Indian cities. It combines key indicators such as average rent, food cost, internet speed, healthcare rating, safety score, and happiness index to help analysts, students, and data enthusiasts perform in-depth comparisons and uncover meaningful insights. 📊 What’s Inside

The dataset contains 200 rows (one per city) and the following columns:

City – Name of the Indian city.

Average Rent (₹) – Estimated monthly rent for a standard apartment.

Food Cost (₹) – Average monthly food expenses per person.

Internet Speed (Mbps) – Typical broadband download speed.

Healthcare Rating (1-10) – Quality and accessibility of healthcare services.

Safety Score (1-10) – Perceived safety level in the city.

Happiness Index (1-10) – Overall life satisfaction rating.

💡 Potential Insights You Can Explore

Which Indian cities provide the best happiness for the least money?

How safety and happiness correlate across regions.

Which cities are most digital-nomad-friendly based on internet speed and cost.

Regional patterns in healthcare quality vs cost of living.

🛠 Ideal For

Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)

Data Visualization Projects

Regression & Correlation Studies

Geospatial Mapping

Urban Economics & Policy Research

About This Dataset

This dataset is the original 70-city version used in my first published research paper: “A Data-Driven Survey on Cost of Living and Salary Affordability in Indian Cities” (IJRASET, 2025) Link: https://www.ijraset.com/best-journal/a-datadriven-survey-on-cost-of-livingsalary-affordability-in-indian-cities

It was created using web-scraping techniques from LivingCost.org and converted to INR using a consistent USD→INR exchange rate. This dataset forms the foundational base for affordability analysis, exploratory data analysis (EDA), and benchmarking cost-of-living patterns across India.

The dataset includes 70+ Indian cities, with fields covering living cost, rent, salary, affordability ratio (“months covered”), and derived financial indicators. It is clean, structured, and suitable for beginner to intermediate analytics projects.

Why This Dataset?

This dataset is ideal for:

EDA practice for college & school projects

Correlation and regression analysis

Basic ML tasks (predicting salary, affordability, rent, etc.)

Urban economics mini-projects

Dashboard creation (PowerBI, Tableau)

Data cleaning and preprocessing assignments

It is designed to be simple enough for students but structured enough for real-world analysis.

Features Included

Each row represents a city/state-level affordability profile with:

Cost of living (USD & INR)

Rent for a single person (USD & INR)

Monthly after-tax salary (USD & INR)

Income after rent

“Months Covered” affordability ratio

Source URLs for verification

Exchange rate used

This makes the dataset both transparent and reliable for academic usage.

Data Quality

Web-scraped directly from LivingCost.org

Cleaned and standardized

Currency converted uniformly

Non-city entries flagged

Fully reproducible from the source

This dataset served as the master input for my peer-reviewed paper and has been validated through statistical analysis.

Intended Audience

Students (school, undergraduate, postgraduate)

Data science beginners

Educators needing real datasets for teaching

Analysts looking for quick EDA practice

Researchers exploring affordability or urban economics

Note

A more comprehensive 200+ city enhanced dataset (used in my second paper) will be uploaded soon, including ICT metrics, GDP, and extended affordability indicators.

Dataset Description: Indian Urban Affordability and Economic Productivity (221 Cities) About the Dataset

This dataset represents the comprehensive 221-city version developed and utilized in the research paper “Predicting Urban Affordability and Economic Productivity in India: A Data-Driven KNN and Random Forest Framework with Insights from Selected Major Cities.”

It builds upon the author’s earlier 70-city affordability dataset and significantly expands its scope.

The dataset provides a unified framework to study how urban affordability, digital readiness, and GDP specialization jointly influence economic livability and productivity across different city tiers.

Data Provenance and Construction

Primary Source: Extended web-scraped affordability data originally compiled from LivingCost.org and other verified open-data platforms.

Cleaning & Standardization: City names normalized (e.g., “Bengaluru” → “Bangalore”), and all numeric fields standardized to INR using a consistent USD→INR conversion rate for comparability.

Features Included

Each record (row) corresponds to one city and contains the following metrics:

Cost of Living (INR)

Monthly Rent (INR)

Monthly After-Tax Salary (INR)

Income After Rent (INR)

Affordability Ratio (“Months Covered”)

Intended Applications

This dataset can be used for:

🧮 Cross-city affordability and livability analysis

🤖 Machine Learning model development (affordability or salary prediction)

🌆 Urban economics and policy simulation studies

📈 Correlation and regression-based research in ICT and GDP domains

📊 Dashboard and visualization projects (Power BI, Tableau, SAP SAC, etc.)

It is designed for use by researchers, policymakers, educators, and data analysts seeking a reliable, structured, and multi-domain dataset on Indian urban dynamics.

Data Quality and Transparency

✅ Uniform currency and value scaling

✅ Reproducible preprocessing (Python-based pipelines with Scikit-Learn)

✅ Missing values imputed using KNN-based methodology

✅ Verified against baseline datasets used in prior research

✅ Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license

Significance

This dataset forms the empirical backbone of the author’s second research paper, providing the quantitative base for the KNN baseline model and the Random Forest multi-output regressor used to predict salary and affordability across Indian cities.

It enables city-level insight generation for policymakers and supports reproducible, data-driven research in urban economics, digital inclusion, and sustainable development.

Future Extensions

An upcoming enhancement will include:

Complete AQI integration for all 221 cities to examine the affordability–environment linkage.

Time-series extension for multi-year trend analysis.

Inclusion of healthcare, safety, and green infrastructure indicators for a broader livability framework.

A additional file used in my paper on T30 cities of India with justification is also attached.

Comprehensive cost of living breakdown for India including housing, food, transportation, and healthcare costs for retirement planning.

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During the financial year 2026, the cost inflation index (CII) in India stood at ***. This was an increase from the previous year's figure of ***. The CII is used to compute an asset's inflation-adjusted cost price. It is used to assess the inflation value of assets like land, houses, jewelry etc.

This dataset provides a comprehensive overview of inflation and consumer price trends in India. It includes detailed information on the annual percentage change in the cost to the average consumer of acquiring a basket of goods and services that may be fixed or changed at specified intervals. The dataset covers a significant time period, allowing for analysis of inflationary patterns, the impact of economic policies, and the overall cost of living. This data is essential for economists, policymakers, and researchers to understand the dynamics of consumer prices and to make informed decisions regarding economic strategies and interventions.

In the second half of 2023, Hyderabad showed the highest growth of ** percent in residential unit price. There was a general increase in prices per square feet in the residential market in all eight major metropolitan regions. The residential real estate market has slowly recovered from coronavirus pandemic. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as well as a high number of unsold inventories in many cities, especially in the premium and luxury segments, are perceived to be the main drivers for decreasing prices. India’s residential market While the majority of India’s population is still living in rural areas, urbanization is increasing. This results in a high demand for affordable housing in big cities for workers moving from rural parts of the country. Despite a new momentum in governmental efforts for affordable housing in recent years, there is still a gap between the low, middle, and high income groups in terms of demand and supply of housing units. The future outlook Over the last ten years, housing in the biggest Indian cities has become more affordable. Affordability sets income in relation to housing prices. Nevertheless, it is seen that the residential real estate market would continue to grow significantly in the coming years.

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The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure that examines the weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, such as transportation, food, and medical care. It is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket and averaging them. Prices are collected periodically, and the CPI is often used to measure inflation, reflecting the cost of living. The CPI is typically set against a base year. The index is set to 100 in the base year, and changes in the CPI indicate price changes compared to that year. A typical household might purchase a wide range of products and services. Items in the basket are weighted according to their importance or share in total household spending. The Inflation Rate is the percentage increase in the general level of prices for goods and services over a period of time. It indicates how much prices have risen over a specific period, typically a year. Higher inflation decreases the purchasing power of money, meaning consumers can buy less with the same amount of money.It reflects the overall health of an economy. Moderate inflation is expected in a growing economy, but hyperinflation can indicate economic instability. The Inflation Rate is calculated using the following formula: Inflation Rate (%) = ((CPI in Current Year−CPI in Previous Year)/ (CPI in Previous Year))×100

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