Amid the 12 cities of UP selected for Smart City development, Lucknow has garnered least number of suggestions from residents till the deadline of Monday. This is much lower compared to those in smaller cities like Allahabad, Jhansi and Aligarh.

Even Lucknow Municipal Corporation is shocked to see such a pitiable response from Lucknowites and their indifference towards city’s development, an official was quoted as saying. A Corporation official said: “Though we began well before time to make people aware about proposed developments in the city and conducting consultations with public from time to time, it is unfortunate to receive hardly around 10,000 suggestions within deadline.”

This is in sharp contrast with Allahabad, Jhansi, Aligarh and Kanpur where people have posted over 100,000 suggestions. Allahabad has emerged as the most enthusiastic city in UP to participate in Centre’s Smart City plan. Its residents posted more than 160,000 suggestions on mygov.in. Response from other districts is also commendable with Kanpur posting over 100,000 and Aligarh over 130,000 ideas.