Lucknow has jumped eight ranks to bag the 25th position in the Smart City rankings across the country. This is a clear indication of the fact that Lucknow’s overall standard of cleanliness and development has witnessed a major boost, however, the city’s progress is facing a staggered growth. The slowed pace of civic progression, including pending work at sewer lines, smart road mission, amidst others, needs diligent implementation strategies, with the vision of transforming Lucknow as an absolute smart city.
Lucknow City Development Programmes face slow down
According to the list of the smart cities in the country, Lucknow was earlier ranked at the 33rd position, which has now jumped by 8 points. The smart city index is a quantitative analysis of the municipal and civic development among the chosen smart cities in India. This analysis takes into account, the cities vision, its development projects, standard of living, with access to basic amenities, SWOT for the strategic development of growth, among several other parameters.
Lucknow is currently stuck at rank 25, as the city faces a major slow down due to incomplete work of several strategic projects. The city had to establish an underground electric wire system, by laying trunk lines over an expanse of 813 acres. Similarly, water lines to provide door to door drinking water was also planned. Besides these, several projects in the city are still stuck on their planning and developmental phase, including the installation of water meters and the vision of a smart road.
Sluggish approach towards developed agendas
Every year, under the banner of Lucknow Smart City Limited, the state and the central government sanction about a hundred crore rupees to fund the various civic projects in the capital. The reservoir of city funds currently holds about four hundred crore rupees which depict a lack of planning and development modules, to sincerely invest this amount. The sluggish approach towards the already developed agendas, on the other hand, project an unlikeliness to be completed soon.
This lethargy towards the city can be also pinned onto the nationwide lockdown and the slow and graded unlocking procedure due to the coronavirus pandemic. Several projects, like the addition of underground parking to GPS, beautification of the Kaiserbagh intersections and so on, are still stuck while the digitization of the Amiruddaula Library is also incomplete. Though the command control room is ready, its inauguration has not taken place till date.
