Barely a day after chief minister Nitish Kumar's jab at the Centre on the smart city issue, mayor Afzal Imam said he believed that the state capital is already "smart", mitigating the need of any such scheme.

Imam, who is quite often in the limelight over conflict with officials, which halts civic projects, said he saw the smart city scheme as a political gimmick of the Centre and it had little worth.

"Patna doesn't need any such scheme because it is already smart and the residents are also smart. The smart city scheme of the central government is just a political gimmick for their own vested interests," said Imam on the sidelines of a meeting of the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) board on Saturday.

Nitish on Saturday had likened the Centre to the fabled andher nagri (city of darkness) for ignoring Bihar while picking the first list of 20 smart cities. "It's andher nagri, no propriety, no rules nor any thought for regional balance," Nitish had said.

Andher nagri (a shortened version of the Hindi idiom andher nagri, chaupat raja; takey ser bhaji, takey ser khaja) is used to denote a chaotic, absurd state, where naives rule among the fools.

Taking a dig at the chief minister in the context of contradictory statement made by mayor Imam, a JDU worker himself, senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi recited the famous dialogue by veteran Bollywood actor Raj Kumar in Waqt: "Jinke ghar sheeshe ke hote hain woh doosron ke gharon par patthar nahi phenka karte (People who live in glass houses, should not throw stones)."

"I want to ask what kind of reforms did the state government initiate to ensure coverage of maximum cities from Bihar under the smart city scheme. The central government had given Rs 2 crore to every short-listed city to prepare project reports. Even after that, the state government could not prepare reports, which could have fetched good ranking for its cities. The situation is so bad that the PMC has not been able to utilise central funds sanctioned under JNNURM seven years ago," said Modi.

Patna failed to make it to the overall list of 97 cities short-listed from across the country in the first stage of the smart city competition. Biharsharif, Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur, however, saved some respect for the state by making it to the preliminary list though none could make it to the first list.

Patna had, in fact, ranked third from bottom in the list of 17 cities from Bihar short-listed in the preliminary stage, scoring 35 per cent, only above Buxar and Sitamarhi, which scored 31.25 per cent each. According to the guidelines prescribed by the Union urban ministry for selection in the smart city scheme, the onus of preparing proposals and initiating required reforms was on the civic bodies. However, PMC has shown a poor track record in managing civic affairs of the state capital, including basic civic issues such as waste management and water supply among others.

Hope for Bhagalpur

Following the announcement of the first 20 cities selected in the smart city scheme, the Centre has provided a special fast track to the 23 states or Union Territories (UTs) from where no city was covered in the first list. The highest-scoring city in each of the 23 states or UTs is required to submit their upgraded smart city proposal by April 15.

Bhagalpur, which ranks 65 in the list of 97 cities with a score of 47.39 per cent has also been chosen for fast-tracking 23 select cities. Biharsharif and Muzaffarpur, on other hand, would compete with another 52 cities from across the country in round 2 of the smart city challenge competition. Biharsharif ranks 91 with a score of 42.22 per cent, while Muzaffarpur stands at 94th position with score of 42 per cent.

Round 2 of the smart city challenge competition would start from April 1, when the 54 cities start submitting their revised proposals, and would conclude on June 30. Selection of up to 40 cities in round 2 is expected to be announced in August.