A few days back I happen to visit KOTA and man was I bowled over!!
The only time I had visited Kota was way back in 2014 and 9 years later it’s a city that I do no recollect ever visiting!!
The city known for its Rajput valour – to the flowing Chambal – to being the original industrial hub of Rajasthan and now to being the education capital of India – it has seen it all.
But what stayed with me after my recent visit was its amazing infrastructure. To the wide roads, flyovers that do not kill a market around it, beautiful crossroads, Seven Wonders and to the now magnificent Chambal River Front.
Unlike Udaipur where it is naturally beautifully with serene lakes, mountains and water bodies all around it thanks to the erstwhile rulers of Mewar and its natural topography what we see in Kota is all recent development.
To have the infrastructure that they have is all because someone had a vision to make a change that would leave a lasting legacy. To think about a project in terms of the design and the scale like The Chambal Riverfront https://www.bhaskar.com/epaper/detail-page/udaipur/18/2023-07-06?pid=10 is not the work of an everyday politician. For I believe the infrastructure of any city is the construct of its elected representative. The funds can be sought but how someone chooses to use those funds is what makes all the difference.
Look at Udaipur what are the projects that have been taken in the last few decades that we will remember a few or for that matter a decade later. Our representatives have spent on consumables rather than invest in Fixed Assets.
Like Chambal Riverfront we too have three lakes in the city but none have ever been utilised this way – for they are being used for private gains – from plots, building homes claiming to be old settlements and commercial enterprise. Whatever little open spaces that we see now is because of the no construction zones otherwise if the land mafia have had their way there would have been farmhouses in the lakes. Well there are few that exist and like the administration I too have turned a blind eye to it.
Like I always say it is not about winning elections but the work that one does that lasts beyond their own lifetime is what will ensure a leaders image in the eyes of future generations.
The leaders / elected representatives of Kota have most definitely done that and hats off to them and a humble request to the people of Kota – Plz keep electing them and have an extra kachori in their honor and If you liked my article parcel some over.
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