It's a battle of the bulge in major cities of Uttar Pradesh. Be it Agra, or the more sedate towns of Aligarh and Meerut, the Manchester of the East Kanpur or pilgrims' delight Varanasi and Allahabad or the industrialised hub of the state, Ghaziabad-it has spread everywhere. The mounting pressure of the population is pushing the edges to these towns to their margins. This, coupled with the crumbling edifice of the urban infrastructure, is adding to the worry lines of town planners when they sit down to plan and visualise these cities two decades from now.
