4 years of Modi govt: A list of promises PM's constituency awaits to be fulfilled

Four and a half years ago, Varanasi witnessed a surge in political attention with Prime Minister Narendra Modi contesting the general elections from the constituency. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader entered the city with a basket of promises relating to the welfare of the city and its residents.

The then chief minister of Gujarat kick-started his political campaign in the city of salvation with the promise to clean the river Ganga. The promises extended to the welfare of handloom weavers through technology upgradation, development of Kashi as the spiritual capital of India, boosting tourism, and other developmental projects.

It was followed up with further project announcements after the Modi's landslide victory. In Varanasi, he brushed aside challengers including Congress’ Ajay Rai and Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal.

However, a closer look at what the BJP and Modi set out to do in the run-up to the 2014 elections reveals that there are certain areas where the government struggled to live up to its poll promises.

With the country heading towards the next Lok Sabha polls, it is apt to take stock of the promises which are yet to be fulfilled.

Ganga clean up

The pet project and the poll campaign’s leading promise, the clean up of Ganga, was a major factor behind Modi’s win in Varanasi. The BJP committed to ensuring the cleanliness, purity and uninterrupted flow of the Ganga on priority. However, the Modi government seems to have failed in fulfiling it. It has been over four years but the river has not been cleaned yet.

Sewage water seeps into the Ganga due to the absence a proper sewage plant in Varanasi. Moreover, the river bank continues to be covered with filth as remnants from religious rituals that are often toxic, continue to be thrown into the river.

The Congress raised the issue of increased pollution of the Ganga in August this year, and accused the Modi of betraying the people of Varanasi by failing his promise to clean up the river held sacred by many Indians.

The party accosted the government, citing an RTI that revealed that the pollution levels in the river are higher than the levels recorded back in 2014 when the Modi government launched its most ambitious 'Namami Gange' initiative.

Trade Facilitation Centre

Another ambitious project undertaken by Modi in Varanasi was the Trade Facilitation Centre and Crafts Museum.

On November 7, 2014, Modi laid the foundation stone of the centre. The first phase was completed and dedicated to Varanasi weavers in December 2016 and the final phase of the centre was completed on September 22, 2017.

Spread across 43,445 square metres, the sprawling campus is situated at Bada Lalpur. The centre-cum-museum has been constructed for Rs 305 crore.

The primary purpose of the centre was to bring all the weavers and artisans under one roof and provide them with the necessary assistance for bolstering their marketing activities in domestic as well as international markets, and carrying forward the rich tradition of handlooms in Varanasi. The government had further anticipated that buyers would come, select and buy from the varieties available at one place.

It was also decided to bring tourists to the place to popularise local handloom products.

However, it has nearly been a year, and the weavers and artisans are far and away from the centre.

“The place is currently being used for exhibitions and other events organized by the government. It has not yet started serving the purpose for which it was built,” said Nitesh Dhawan, Assistant Commissioner, Handloom and Textile Department of Uttar Pradesh.

E-boats

In 2016, Modi visited Varanasi's famed Assi ghat on the occasion of Labour Day, and made the announcement that battery-powered e-boats would be distributed to boatmen. He said that the move was not only aimed at boosting the economic growth of the city, but would also make the environment cleaner.

However, the environment-friendly boats doled out by the government are yet to traverse the muddy waters of the Ganges. Of the 11 boats distributed on the occasion, none are currently in use.

Talking to Moneycontrol, a boatman Virendra Nishad – one of the beneficiaries of the initiative - said that the boats have turned into showpieces due to the lack of charging points.

Just two weeks after the launch, the boatmen started facing trouble in getting the batteries recharged. Several times, the boats halted in the middle of the ride and they were left with no options but to use ores.

It has been more than two years and the boatmen are still suffering from the problem.

Even the eco-friendly boats present with the boatmen are not original, as the ones distributed by the PM were taken back by the manufacturing company under the pretext of repairs, said Nishad.

“Nearly 1.5 years after distribution of the boats by the PM, the manufacturers took them for repairs. They said that the boats will be returned after servicing but they have not been returned to this day. A new company, however, came in June this year and distributed some solar-powered boats, but it is also not serving the purpose,” said the boatman.

Kashi-Kyoto project

Another major announcement, the Kashi-Kyoto project, was to develop Varanasi into a city like Kyoto in Japan.

Nearly three months after winning from the Varanasi constituency, Modi visited Japan. He commenced the trip by signing a pact to develop the ancient temple town as a “smart city”, with the cooperation and experience of Kyoto. The Japanese city is often touted as a prime example of how urban centres can meld heritage and modernity, giving rise to a confluence of motifs from both the past and the present.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the two countries in the presence of Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.

The MoU provided for cooperation in heritage conservation, city modernisation and cooperation in the fields of art, culture and academics.

A year later, Abe visited Varanasi with Modi. Officials from Kyoto also visited the city to analyse the prospects of development and a reciprocal visit was undertaken by the Indian side to learn how the local authorities in Kyoto function.

Almost four years have passed and the city still awaits development on the lines of Kyoto.

All that has been done so far is the commencement of construction work on a convention centre near the city municipal office.

“We are getting a convention centre ‘Rudraksh’ under the Kashi-Kyoto pact. The entire centre is being built by Japanese firms working under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA),” said the Varanasi Municipal Commissioner Nitin Bansal.

“There have been several cultural programmes going on in the city with people of Japan visiting our country and vice versa to understand the existing culture. No other development work, at present, has been going on in the city except Rudraksh,” said Bansal.

Other promises that are yet to be fulfiled 

Apart from the mentioned promises and projects, there were some other ‘off the page’ promises which included a metro rail project, 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, and a global e-commerce-driven mart for handloom and handicrafts, among others.

More than four years have passed and the country is once again gearing up for the forthcoming general elections in 2019.

However, it is not yet known whether Modi will contest the polls from Varanasi yet again, or whether the political circus will shift its tent to another venue come 2019. Nevertheless, the way the vote swings in Varanasi will undoubtedly have a strong bearing on the legislative performance of Narendra Modi in a city whose history is inextricably enmeshed in the Hindu tradition.