Allahabad, India--Its roads are clogged with traffic, the pavements overflow with rubbish and power cuts are a fact of life.
But Allahabad, an ancient settlement on the banks of the Ganges, is hoping to become one of India's first tech-savvy "smart cities" under ambitious plans being piloted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"We are the spiritual capital of India, this place is known as king of the pilgrims, of course we should be a smart city," Swami Anand Giri said at a crowded Hindu temple overlooking the holy river, as devotees filed in to touch his feet and receive his blessing.
Plans for the city have been gathering pace since Modi signed a memorandum of understanding with US President Barack Obama during a visit to India in January. The document promised American assistance, with a potential tie-up with global firms.
Allahabad, one of India's oldest cities mentioned in ancient Hindu texts and surrounded by sacred rivers and farmland, was one of three selected for the first phase, along with eastern port Visakhapatnam and Ajmer in the desert state of Rajasthan.
But along with the plans, which include a power plant run on cow dung and another on tonnes of collected plastic rubbish instead of polluting coal, come the growing expectations of a city used to neglect.
Giri said technology could be used to clean up the filthy Ganges, whose confluence with the Yamuna river in Allahabad draws millions of devotees, ascetics and foreign tourists for the Kumbh Mela and other festivals in heaving seas of humanity.
"I've seen those machines cleaning up the Thames in London. We should have them too," said Giri.
Solar panels in every home could also help to boost power output, with their stored energy kicking in when the city's daily three-to-four hour blackouts hit, according to senior professor C.K Dwivedi at the University of Allahabad.
But some have sought to rein in expectations, with Diane Farrell, acting president of the US-India Business Council, saying companies would only become involved in the city's projects if there was a clear profit to be made.
"Right now the cities are in a phase where they are putting all of their aspirations on the table, but then you have to sit back and work out how to pay for it," Farrell, who visited the city as part of a US fact-finding delegation in January, told AFP by phone from Washington.
"Cities cannot be reliant on US companies for funding or foreign governments, they need to develop successful PPPs (public-private partnerships).
"They have to take responsibility, maybe additional taxes have to be introduced to fund these projects," she said.
AFP
