Like fire attracting moths, India’s oldest and perhaps its most venerated city of Varanasi pulls people from all over the world to itself. It’s much more than just a tourist destination, but even this holiest of holy cities requires regular enhancements. In recent times, the IAS officer of the 2013 batch, Mr. Gaurang Rathi has done much in this direction.
In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Rathi talked about the various creative initiatives he pulled for the refinement of the city.
SURAKSHIT KASHI
Varanasi is known by several names, the two most popular being Kashi and Banaras. Owing to its beauty and cultural importance, millions of tourists visit the city every year and it’s the responsibility of the administration to keep them safe. The ‘Surakshit Kashi’ project has been launched to look at the overall development of security and surveillance of the people. It also aids in better management within the city in terms of traffic regulations.
“We already have an Integrated Command Control Center which allows us to look at around 150 crossings across Varanasi through high resolution cameras and we further have 3000 cameras so we could cover all the city lanes and bi-lanes in commercial areas as well as in the outskirts” says Mr. Rathi.
He further added, “The overall idea is to make the city more safe and secure.”
APPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT
In order to ensure the feeling of safety to public, Mr Rathi has developed an application called ‘Safe Kashi’ app where all the information regarding crimes, action against the crimes, etc. is put up. With respect to tourists, everything about the entire city is fed into the app including the placement of areas in the city.
“For tourists, the app ‘Smart Kashi’ is developed where everything that they would want to know is available. From places to visit restaurants that provide authentic food, to nearby facilities such as banks, hospitals, or hotels, we have got everything under one page” Mr. Rathi told Indian Masterminds.
He is soon planning to introduce e-commerce into the app too.
TRANSFORMING THE GHATS
Varanasi sits majestically on the on the banks of River Ganga. Because of its numerous river banks, it’s also popularly called the city of ghats. Mr. Rathi wishes to spruce up the beauty of the ghats because after all, they are the heart of the city and provide an iconic image to it.
Mr Rathi disclosed that each ghat would be provided with a uniform heritage signage. This signage will be resistant to floods and water rise and will be embedded with chips through which people would be able to read the history as well as various stories of the particular ghat.
“Along with that, we will also be putting up big LCD screens at ghats and railway station for people to take part in Ganga aarti or Kashi Vishwanath Arti from wherever they are. All the important videos that we want to show the people will be played on it, too” Mr. Rathi told Indian Masterminds.
Posted as the Chief Executive Officer of Varanasi Smart City Ltd. /Shri Kashi Vishwanath Trust and the Municipal Commissioner of Varanasi, Mr. Rathi has developed around 65 kilometers long streets with complete refurbishing and painting of the correspondent area. This place will accommodate various facilities in one place including handicraft, medication center, long walkways, green areas, helipads, and space for water sports.
“In the next 8-9 months, we are converting all diesel boats into CNG boats, which hasn’t been done before anywhere in the entire world. As many as150 boats will be started by January and by the end of the year, 1700 boats will be converted” said Mr. Rathi.
CYCLE-4-CHANGE & HAPPY STREETS
Under the campaign ‘Cycle 4 Change’ that began on 26 th September 2020, Mr. Rathi asked people of Varanasi to take the ownership of their city by cycling around the place and spreading awareness about air pollution and motivating others to use bicycles instead of motor vehicles. “We do it every weekend and take different stretches of roads every time. We wanted to create awareness about people’s health and pollution management” he told Indian Masterminds.
For another creative event called ‘Happy Street’, a section of road is blocked for 3-4 hours and people could come to the section to participate in different creative activities such as yoga, Zumba, painting, crafts, acts, etc. “Happy street started from November 1 and happens on Sundays” added Mr. Rathi.
WASTE TO ART PROJECT
Students from Art faculty of Banaras Hindu University were asked to involve themselves in the development of the city. Several groups of 4-5 students along with a professor were created and were given the responsibility of converting waste into something artistic, that could be displayed around the city.
“The idea was to use waste with people’s partnership. Eight artistic installations have already been done and a 200-meter stretch in the under-bridge displays handicrafts such as wooden toys, different luminaries and personalities of Varanasi, famous musical instruments, etc, ” said Mr Rathi.
So next time you re-visit Varanasi and see the changes, you will know who has been responsible for them.
