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JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Provincial President (Jammu), Rattan Lal Gupta, has launched a scathing critique of the much-hyped Smart City initiative, demanding a thorough structural audit of the funds spent on the Jammu Smart City projects.
“In the wake of massive floods and the widespread hardship they caused, the so-called pilot ‘Smart City’ project of the incumbent LG- Led Administration has been exposed as nothing more than a grand illusion. If this is what they call smart, then we’d hate to see what negligence looks like,” Gupta said, hitting out at the superficial nature of the projects. He alleged that crores have been wasted on mere surface-level beautification, while essential infrastructure crumbled at the very first downpour. “One heavy rain was enough to wash away the illusion and with it, the people’s patience. The officers responsible must now be held accountable, penny by penny, and booked under the law.”
Gupta didn’t hold back on the execution of the Smart City initiatives, stating, “These so-called ‘smart’ projects were carried out without any groundwork or coherent planning. Instead of bringing about transformative urban development, what we have witnessed is a superficial facade that completely ignores the real civic needs of our people.
Under the guise of the Smart City project, all that has been done is encroachment and choking of drains, which directly resulted in the chaos we are witnessing today. The grand promises of these projects being ‘game changers’ have been thoroughly exposed as empty rhetoric. The catastrophic flooding and uncontrolled runoff across every corner of Jammu city reveal the inconvenient truth: these works were unplanned, unsmart, and fundamentally flawed.”
Calling the situation a betrayal of public trust, Gupta added, “This is not just poor execution. It’s scandalous mismanagement of funds that has put the entire project under a dark cloud. The floods have raised serious questions about the project and the bravado surrounding it. We demand a full and transparent investigation, and those responsible must be brought to justice. The people deserve answers, and the Smart City must finally live up to its name or be held fully accountable for the damage done.”
