In 4 Years, Modi Pledged Over Rs 42,000 Crore Projects For Varanasi

Since Narendra Modi opted to retain his Varanasi Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh after the 2014 general elections, he has visited the city 14 times, last on September 17-18, 2018. A search of media reports on his visits over the past four and a half years showed that he announced projects worth about Rs 42,514 crore during these visits. These are only announcements, not actual spending figures.

During the election campaign and after his victory, he had made some ‘off the page’ promises which included a metro, monorail, six-lane highways, flyovers, ring roads, satellite towns, round-the-clock water, electricity and broadband, solid waste management systems, a Bhojpuri film city, an international spiritualism-cum-philosophy centre, battery operated cars, a global e-commerce-driven mart for handloom and handicraft, solar lighting in public places and a clean and rejuvenated River Ganga with luxury cruises running on her waters. He sometimes promised to make Varanasi like the ancient shrine city of Kyoto in Japan and at other times spoke of redeveloping it like London after World War 2.

Whether the people of Varanasi were dazzled by this garish vision or whether they calculated that having the PM as their own member of Parliament would be helpful in some nebulous way, Modi got elected smoothly. Since then it has been one project after another, all running into crores of rupees.

In his most recent visit, which coincided with his 68th birthday, Modi gave a review of all the “development” that has taken place in Varanasi. Prominently finding mention was the mess of overhead electrical cables and wiring found in the city’s narrow lanes which he had noticed in the early visits. He innocently claimed that “a large portion of the city has been rid of such wires and at remaining places work on laying underground cables is going on at a fast pace”. In four years only a portion? That’s what residents were wondering. He also claimed that footfall at the local airport has increased from eight lakh in 2014 to 21 lakh currently. He said that this indicated development, a Smart City.

In these four plus years, Modi has laid the foundation stone of/inaugurated/distributed/flagged off/given the green signal to a dizzying range of activities some of which include starting a conservation centre for the desi elite cow breed called Gangatiri to launching the Atal Incubation Centre at BHU for entrepreneurs. A luxury cruise has been launched on the Ganga plying between Varanasi and Patna charging Rs. 90,000 per head on twin-sharing basis for the nine-day journey.

It’s another matter that the revered Ganga herself – repeatedly addressed as ‘Mother’ by Modi in his speeches at Varanasi – remains as dirty and polluted as before. Modi announced a Rs.21,000 crore plan to clean up the river from its source in the Himalayas to Kolkata, with Rs.600 crore specially kept aside for his constituency Varanasi. Sewage and effluent treatment plants and a whole menu of fixes were identified. But the Ganga continues to be as pitiable as earlier.

Modi has distributed thousands of LED bulbs to the city’s puzzled residents and in his last visit gave away 500 honey-bee boxes. His advisers seem to be running out of ideas on what all to give.

Various ministries have been roped in to contribute to the announcements made by Modi for his beloved Varanasi, or Kashi as he often refers to it. Media reports indicate that projects worth over Rs.8000 crore were announced by ministries that would indirectly benefit the city, like the Road Ministry’s highways and connecting roads. Even the Shipping Ministry has declared that it will set up multimodal terminal at Ramnagar, Varanasi!

This brief tour through the Wonderland of Varanasi was meant to raise three questions:

• Is it morally, and legally justifiable for a Prime Minister of India to go about splurging public money in this unbridled manner on his own constituency?

• Is it morally justified to ‘develop’ an island in the midst of one of the most densely populated and poorest swathes of the country where there are practically no industries, children die by the hundreds from encephalitis and landless labourers work at a pittance in landlords’ fields?

• Is all this money really reaching and helping the 15 lakh residents of Varanasi? Various reports have indicated that the city has now become a mess of road works, giant hoardings and contractors zipping around in SUVs. The collapse of a flyover earlier this year showed how work is getting done. Are the weavers and farmers and tourism industry workers enjoying ‘achhe din’ or do they have to elect Modi another time?