In Lucknow, capital of India's largest state Uttar Pradesh and the home constituency of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, much of the old charm is being paved with concrete. New apartment complexes, flashy building facades, grand statues, spruced-up parks, flyovers and bridges-this old city is beginning to sport a new look.

Of late, Lucknow has received more than its due share of Central attention. Over Rs 3,130 crore has been sanctioned for different projects, almost all of it after he became the prime minister. It is debatable if all these projects have made a significant difference in the lives of ordinary people, but Lalji Tandon, former state urban development minister who is now Vajpayee's constituency manager for Lucknow, waxes eloquent. "If Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula established Lucknow as the capital of Oudh in medieval times, Vajpayee has developed it as a modern city," he says.

NOT OUR FAULT: Tandon blames UP Government for tardy progress

Major civic problems like water, power, roads, waste disposal and sewer lines have been taken up in a coordinated manner for the first time because of the prime minister's initiative. For long, the city had been under great pressure because the Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration was set up to cater to the needs of one lakh consumers while the demand today is from 4.5 lakh. For years, the onset of summer has seen the city in the grip of an acute water crisis. But today, the situation has vastly improved with water supply having been regulated and a new sewer and drainage system laid in the Old City. Seven overbridges have been constructed while traffic pressure has been eased with the widening of roads and the introduction of two circular trains. On an average, 3,000 vehicles are added to Lucknow's roads every month; but stringent measures against old and outdated tempos, buses and rickshaws mean nobody is harbouring fears of a sudden rise in pollution levels.

Due emphasis is also being laid on aesthetics in order to restore the glory of the historical city. Slum-dwellers have been relocated in over 10,000 concrete structures and over 200 parks and gardens developed to ensure lung space. The Gomti river is being cleaned up and Gaurav Kunj, a park, being planned along its banks. This "pride park" will reflect the rich heritage of the country by displaying the works of ancient Indian scientists, saints and others who have contributed to India's image as the land of the spiritual.

The list of projects is endless: there is a trauma centre, the first of its kind in north India, a science convention centre which is nearing completion, a planetarium, a unique biotechnology park, the Indian Institute of Railway Management, a power plant that generates power from biodegradable solid waste. The Lucknow airport has been upgraded to international standards and a new railway terminal is coming up at Gomti Nagar.

To establish Lucknow as a hub of medical research, the prime minister has also laid the foundation for study centres and hospitals in the Unani, Ayurvedic and Homoeopathic lines of medicine. "Nobody had paid attention to the Unani way of medical treatment," recalls Raees Ansari, well-known poet and former head of the intellectual cell of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee. "We are grateful to the prime minister for sanctioning the Unani research centre and hospital."

But there are many who believe that the prime minister's projects have merely scratched the surface without impacting industrial development in a big way. Worse, they point out that some establishments like the state Electronic Corporation and the City Cooperative Bank were closed down after Vajpayee became prime minister. Even a software technology park which was being planned in collaboration with a private company did not materialise after the owners of the company duped hundreds of investors and fled the city.

Inevitably, the debate on Vajpayee's Lucknow agenda has led to comparisons. Some say Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has done more for his constituency Allahabad than Vajpayee has done for his. The most important steps Joshi took for the welfare of Allahabad were the setting up of the the first Indian Institute of Information Technology there and the upgradation of Allahabad University to a Central university.

But perhaps a more accurate comparison would be with other prime ministerial constituencies, at least two of which lie next door to Lucknow. Indira Gandhi represented Rae Bareilly and her son Rajiv represented Amethi. During Rajiv's tenure as prime minister, more than Rs 5,000 crore was pumped in to set up 168 industrial units in Sultanpur district under which Amethi falls. These units included well-known names like Indo-Gulf Fertilisers and ACC which employed more than 30,000 people in Sultanpur alone. It is a different matter that while Vajpayee cannot boast of such a scale of industrial development in Lucknow, his aides contend that his plans have been hampered by frequent change of guard in the state. "What can we do if the state Government does not release funds and manpower for projects in Lucknow?" asks Tandon, pointing to the manner in which land earmarked for a project on disposal of carcasses was allegedly grabbed by a Samajwadi Party leader.

The claims and counter-claims apart, few question the prime minister's commitment to Lucknow where he contested a bye-election for the first time in 1955. That was when as a young Jan Sangh leader, he had campaigned on a bicycle and a tonga, taking breaks at the Coffee House at Hazratganj. "Despite having lost the elections, Vajpayee was in love with Lucknow for some reason," recalls Bajrang Sharan Tewari, editor of Kala Kunj, the RSS journal. The love affair, evidently, continues.