Rae Bareli and Meerut vie for Smart City tag

The state government has urged the Centre to include both Meerut and Rae Bareli in the project

Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, is pitched against Meerut, a prosperous and thriving city in western Uttar Pradesh, for the final slot in the National Democratic Alliance government's Smart City project.

Each state has been given a fixed number of cities to nominate for the Smart City plan, with UP getting the largest quota of 13 cities. While the names of 12 cities to be developed under the plan have been declared, the state is yet to nominate one last city.

As things stand today, there seems to be a tie between Rae Bareli and Meerut. The state government has urged the Union urban development ministry to include both Meerut and Rae Bareli in the project. However, it is unlikely that the Centre will accede to such a request as it could lead to similar demands from other states.

Of the two contenders, Meerut seems to have the upper hand. It is more industrialised and its economy is bigger than that of Rae Bareli. In 2011-12, the gross district domestic product of Meerut was almost Rs 19,000 crore, while for Rae Bareli it was only Rs 5,725 crore. Economic growth too has been faster for Meerut at 11.12 per cent in 2011-12, against 10.68 per cent for Rae Bareli.

Another advantage that Meerut has is that it already has a municipal corporation and a mayor to meet the city's civic requirements, whereas Rae Bareli is still served by a municipal board. Experts believe having a civic structure that has been upgraded to a mayoral municipality from a municipal board would help Meerut's case.

Talking to Business Standard, Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Manoj Kumar Pandey, who represents the Unchahar assembly constituency in Rae Bareli, says both cities deserve to be included in the project.

"Both meet all the qualifying norms for the Smart City project and should be included. UP is a large state with a large population. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won the maximum number of Parliament seats from UP and it should give due representation to the state in the selection of Smart Cities," he says.

BJP has alleged the state government led by Akhilesh Yadav is keen to nominate Rae Bareli for the project as Meerut is considered a BJP stronghold.

The high-powered committee, headed by Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan, instituted to select cities to be developed into Smart Cities will meet on September 21 to discuss the issue and decide the future course of action.

The 12 cities already selected by UP include Allahabad, Aligarh, Agra, Bareilly, Ghaziabad, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Moradabad, Rampur, Saharanpur and Varanasi.

The National Democratic Alliance government has allotted a budget of Rs 48,000 crore over five years for its flagship Smart City project that will focus on developing clean water supply, sanitation and solid waste management, among other things, in 100 cities across the country.