Never in the history of Bhopal any government project faced the wrath of citizens on such a scale as happened in this case. On May 16, Chief Minister called a meeting of top officials and after consideration lasting three hours the decision to change the location was announced. Later an official communique was issued. The communique listed the reason for the change.

The following is the text of the communique. 'Honouring sentiments of the people, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has decided that the smart city project will now be implemented in North TT Nagar, given the greenery in Shivaji Nagar... it didn't look wise to raise high-rise buildings in the area. Hence, the smart city will be developed on a 280 hectare vacant land in North TT Nagar.'

The project if implemented in the Shivaji Nagar-Tulsi Nagar area would have resulted in the demolition of more than two thousand houses and felling of more than thirty thousand trees. Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar is the greenest area of Bhopal. When the report of final project was published in the newspaper, it instantly resulted in the chorus of protest.

Most of the houses in the area were built in the late seventies. The Shivaji Nagar Tulsi Nagar is the predominantly government colony. Officers of all rank and employees live there. This area is about two-three km from the state secretariat known as Vallabh Bhavan and offices of the heads of departments which are located in two multi-storey bhavans known as Satpuda and Vindhyachal. According to the project, all these houses were to be demolished and occupants were to be shifted to areas which would have eight and ten kms away from the government offices. The government was to purchase vacant houses built by various builders. These houses are vacant because there are hardly any purchaser for them. Thus the scheme was partly aimed to benefit the builders.

The land would have been rendered vacant after demolition of houses and uprooting of trees was to be handed over to builders to build multi-storey houses. So people started describing this project as by the builders, for the builders and of the builders.

Initially some NGOs raised their voice against it. Subsequently more organisations started opposing it. After few days political parties jumped in the fray. The Congress converted it into a massive anti-government movement. The party started rousing people against the project ward level corner meetings were organised. On one day a Jan-Samvad (People's dialogue) was organised in which about five to six thousand residents, including large number of women participated. This programme stated from 7 PM, continued till 11 PM. At the end of the samvad it was declared by the residents of the area that every house will be demolished over our dead body and every tree will also be uprooted over our dead body. Meanwhile a group of retired high government officers including former chief secretaries, retired IAS, IPS, IES officers entered the agitation.

The opposition took a crucial turn when a sizable powerful section of the ruling party publicly started opposing the project. They included two cabinet ministers, (Home minister Babulal Gaur and Higher Education minister Uma Shanker Gupta), Alok Sanjar, BJP member of the Lok Sabha, all the local legislator of the BJP, they were Rameshwar Sharma, Vishwas Sarang and Surendra Singh. All of them demanded change in the location of the smart city. Babulal Gaur alleged that even he was kept in the dark about the project.

The authors of the project claimed that they selected the venue after consulting the people who supported selection of Shivaji Nagar and Tulsi Nagar as the location of smart city. But thousands of people claimed that they were never consulted. The claim of obtaining people's approval was a bundle of untruths. Subsequent evidence exposed the claim of the authorities. The change in the location of the smart city came as a relief to the residents of the area. The truth is that the entire claim of unanimous support for the project was nothing but a blatant lie. (IPA Service)