Will make MP cities better than US: Chouhan

Drawing a parallel between the US and Madhya Pradesh once again, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said that his government would make cities in the state, going to polls this year, better than those in the USA.

Addressing a function in Sagar on Saturday, the chief minister, who is helming the state since 2005, also said that the cities in the central state would emerge as the "cleanest, prettiest and developed cities," in the country in the next five years.

Madhya Pradesh is going to polls later this year.

"We are going make Madhya Pradesh cities better than the US. Our government has been continuously trying to make the cities modern and we will continue to do so," Chouhan said while inaugurating urban development projects worth more than Rs 14,000 crore.

He said, "Cities in Madhya Pradesh would become the cleanest, prettiest and developed in the country in the next five years".

This is not the first time that Chouhan had compared the infrastructure in Madhya Pradesh with the US.

Addressing a business round-table organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum in Washington on October 24 last year, Chouhan had said that condition of roads in Madhya Pradesh was better than those in the US.

"When I got down at the Washington airport and travelled on the road, I felt the roads in Madhya Pradesh are better than in the United States...I am saying this not just for the sake of saying," Chouhan had said.

Subsequently, Chouhan had cited a report to claim that 92% of the roads in Washington are in "poor" shape.

"I want to give you an example. If you go to the city through the super corridor from the Indore airport, you will find world class roads. This was in my mind when I was speaking in the US.

"I had read a report that 92 per cent of the roads in Washington are in poor shape," he had said.

Chouhan had also claimed that India and Madhya Pradesh were way ahead of the US in terms of women empowerment.