Revision summary
Smart Cities Mission (2015) is a competitive Union scheme for 100 cities with city-level SPVs. It combines area-based retrofit or redevelopment with pan-city digital services. Eastern Uttar Pradesh selections in the original list are Varanasi and Prayagraj. Varanasi’s character is ghats, pilgrimage density, and Ganga-linked waste and mobility works. Prayagraj’s character is Sangam, Kumbh crowds, and civil-lines versus old-city smart roads.
Model answer
Introduction
The Smart Cities Mission is a Union urban programme launched in 2015 to retrofit selected cities with area-based and pan-city digital and infrastructure projects. In Uttar Pradesh the eastern selections that fit Purvanchal in the original hundred-city list are Varanasi and Prayagraj.
Body
What the Smart Cities Mission is
- The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launched the Mission in June 2015 as a competitive, centrally sponsored scheme for 100 cities, with a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in each city and a mix of Centre, State, and municipal or PPP finance.
- The method is not a new town on empty land: it uses area-based development (redevelopment, retrofitting, or greenfield pockets) plus pan-city solutions such as IT-based traffic, water, and grievance systems.
- Core stated aims are adequate water, 24×7 electricity, sanitation, housing, walkability, public transport, safety, and e-governance, grouped as ‘smart’ service delivery rather than only gadgets.
Eastern Uttar Pradesh cities on the list
- Varanasi (Kashi), selected in the first round, is a dense pilgrimage and Ganga-ghat city: the Mission here is characterised by riverfront and ghat works, heritage lighting and roads in the old city, solid-waste and sewage links to the Ganga, and tourist-mobility projects around Kashi Vishwanath and the cantonment–civil lines contrast.
- Prayagraj (Allahabad), also a first-round city, is characterised by the Ganga–Yamuna Sangam, Kumbh-scale temporary urbanism, a colonial civil-lines grid against old mohallas, and smart-road, junction, and riverfront projects meant to move pilgrims and residents between Sangam, Civil Lines, and the railway belt.
- Other Uttar Pradesh smart cities — Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Ghaziabad, Aligarh, Bareilly, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Rampur, Jhansi — lie in Awadh, the west, or Bundelkhand, so they are not eastern Purvanchal selections.
Critical note
- Both eastern cities are heritage–pilgrim cores with informal work and flood-edge slums; smart projects can improve junctions and Wi-Fi without dissolving crowding on the ghats unless sewage and housing move with them.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD M[Smart Cities Mission 2015] --> S[SPV area based pan city] M --> E[Eastern UP Varanasi Prayagraj] E --> V[Ghats heritage sewage mobility] E --> P[Sangam Kumbh civil lines roads]
Conclusion
The Smart Cities Mission (2015) funds SPV-led retrofit of chosen cities. Eastern Uttar Pradesh’s selected cities are Varanasi and Prayagraj, both Ganga pilgrim-historic cores whose smart projects centre on riverfront, heritage streets, and crowd mobility rather than greenfield industry towns.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Describe the location of major tourist places of Bundelkhand Tourist Circuit of U.P.
Next question in the 2020 paper (Q9). View answer →
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Is Lucknow an eastern Uttar Pradesh smart city?
Lucknow is an Awadh/central capital city on the Mission list. The strictly eastern Purvanchal pair in the original hundred is Varanasi and Prayagraj.
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Does ‘smart’ mean only CCTV and apps?
The guidelines list water, sanitation, housing, and transport first. Digital tools are a layer; in Varanasi and Prayagraj the test is still sewage, crowding, and river pollution.
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