Revision summary
Smart City Mission (2015) funds area-based and pan-city projects in about 100 cities. Eastern UP selections under the scheme are Varanasi and Prayagraj. Varanasi’s character is ghats, lanes, weaving, and pilgrimage density. Prayagraj’s character is Sangam, Kumbh, and an administrative civil station. Both need riverfront, waste, and crowd systems more than greenfield townships.
Model answer
Introduction
The Smart City Mission is a Union urban programme, launched in 2015, to retrofit about one hundred cities with area-based and pan-city digital and infrastructure projects. In eastern Uttar Pradesh the selected cities are Varanasi and Prayagraj, and their character is sacred-river urbanism more than greenfield new towns.
Body
Smart City Mission
- The Mission funds a Special Purpose Vehicle in each city for compact area-based development plus pan-city ICT: traffic, water, street lighting, and e-governance.
- Selection was competitive among municipalities; Uttar Pradesh received several cities, of which the clearly eastern pair is Varanasi and Prayagraj.
- The aim is liveability and local economy, not only gadgets; heritage and flood-prone riverfronts are part of the eastern UP brief.
Eastern UP cities selected
- Varanasi is a living sacred city on the Ganga, with ghats, lanes, weaving, and pilgrimage peaks; Smart City work here is riverfront, lighting, solid waste, and mobility in a dense historic core, beside the Kashi Vishwanath corridor as a parallel heritage project.
- Prayagraj is the Triveni administrative and Kumbh city: wide civil-station grain, sangam floodplain, and periodic mega-congregation; Smart City characteristics are riverfront, traffic and crowd systems, and civic services sized for Kumbh loads.
- Both are Ganga towns with high floating population, weak sewerage relative to ritual bathing, and a tourism-plus-administration economy rather than heavy factory cores.
- Kanpur, though a large Ganga industrial city, is usually classed as central Doab, so the eastern discussion should stay with Varanasi and Prayagraj as the Mission’s Purvanchal faces.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD M[Smart City Mission 2015] --> V[Varanasi ghats craft] M --> P[Prayagraj Sangam Kumbh] V --> G[Ganga heritage density] P --> G
Conclusion
Smart City Mission is the 2015 area-based plus pan-city urban mission. Eastern UP’s selected faces are Varanasi and Prayagraj: sacred Ganga cities whose smart projects must serve ghats, Kumbh crowds, and heritage density, not only generic IT dashboards.
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Was Gorakhpur selected as a Smart City?
Gorakhpur is a major eastern city but was not in the original Smart City Mission list; Varanasi and Prayagraj are the eastern UP selections.
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Is the Kashi Vishwanath corridor the Smart City Mission?
It is a major heritage project in Varanasi that runs beside Smart City works; it is not the Mission’s only or official title.
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