True views of public not being sought
Nagpur: The ambitious Smart City project launched by the Central government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be a ‘dream.’ The cities chosen to be converted into smart cities include Nagpur.
It was when Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule held a press conference and shared his government’s policy on smart city with the media persons. He also told the media about seeking public opinion how to make Nagpur a smart city, a better city.
Accordingly, the NMC officials and employees will be deputed to visit door-to-door of citizens and seek their opinions on smart city. Guardian Minister feels that the citizens will offer their opinions on the given formats.
As these were the orders from Guardian Minister on Tuesday, the NMC employees were found on their toes since the Wednesday morning. But, rather than seeking public opinion on smart city, the NMC employees were found seeking public opinion on Swachchha Bharat Abhiyan, and they started filling in the given format the names and phone numbers of the citizens.
The NMC employees themselves filled in the entries in the given format by correcting and updating the required information with positivity and entered their names and phone numbers while entry, as, ‘Whether your city is clean’, was already tick-marked with ‘right’ sign. Similarly, the answers to employment, security of women, hospital, basic civic amenities, etc, were already fed in the space provided in the format.
Such an attitude of NMC raises doubts whether the public opinions are being seriously sought, or it is just a mockery of public participation in making Nagpur a smart city.
