Unveiling the plan for a 1,150-acre high-tech city in trans-Yamuna area of Allahabad, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav Wednesday took potshots at Centre’s Smart Cities plan saying it was like wearing a tie with kurta and pyjama as the project has ignored the development of rural areas.

“Our government will offer full cooperation to the Centre in its efforts to develop Smart Cities in Uttar Pradesh. Talking of building Smart Cities without infrastructure was like ‘kurta-pyjama ke upar tie pehen-na (wearing a tie over kurta-pyjama). Ultra-modern townships scattered here and there would be of no use if the vast rural landscape connecting these Smart Cities was left undeveloped,” Akhilesh said.

He was addressing a gathering after joining in the ‘bhoomi-pujan’ for the Saraswati Hi-Tech City that will be executed by the Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation in Sadwa village in Naini area.

“In every city we get to hear cries of skyrocketing prices of vegetables and other edibles. If we go to villages, people complain not about the rising prices but the lack of means trough which their agricultural produce can cater to the vast markets of the rapidly expanding cities. If we develop mechanisms through which this gap is bridged, it would benefit both the farmers in the villages as well as the consumers in the cities,” he said.