Protests against discrimination meted out in elevating Cuttack as Smart City grow

CUTTACK: After politicians and college students, the lawyers of Cuttack city today joined the bandwagon protesting alleged discrimination meted out to the city in evaluating its capabilities to be included as a potential Smart City.

The Centre's ambitious project for different cities in the country seems to be eluding the Cuttack due a "conspiracy" hatched both by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre and the ruling BJD in the state, alleged the opposition Congress, while taking out a rally and submitting a memorandum to the President through the district collector.

Likewise, lawyers of all the ten bars in the city, including that of the High Court, abstained from work and took out a protest rally.

Led by High Court Bar Association president Dr Ashok Mohapatra, lawyers submitted separate memorandums to the RDC (revenue divisional commissioner), district collector and member, Board of Revenue.

The memorandums pointed out that a faulty evaluation process was adopted to select the potential Smart Cities in the state and both political parties and bureaucrats were engaged in a conspiracy to belittle the status of Cuttack.

"We have decided to continue our agitation indefinitely and if the state government does not amend its ways in discriminating the city by August 3, we will be forced to hit the roads," said the High Court Bar general secretary Bijay Kumar Ragad.

State administration sources said the state government has decided to recommend the names of Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Berhampur, Sambalpur and Cuttack as the potential cities to be included as Smart Cities whereas, the Union Ministry of Urban Development has decided to adopt only two cities from the state in the ambitious project.