VARANASI: Varanasi is inundated with men and machines digging up every other road and lane, earthmovers stationed on already narrow roads, and huge electric cable rolls lining up on roadsides, causing traffic jams all over.The holy city on the Ganga is no pretty sight as it prepares to go to polls in two weeks from now, but clearly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency is in the middle of a transformation: a range of central government-sanctioned projects are on simultaneously, and one can spot men at work almost everywhere.Kyoto or not, PM Modi’s Varanasi model is steadily taking shape.Although every authority in the town concedes that things are slower than expected, almost everybody expects results to start showing up by the end of this calendar. And when it goes to Lok Sabha polls in 2019, Varanasi is likely to have cleaned up its act like few other Indian cities.Amid all the dust rising up from constant and ubiquitous construction, the city proudly shows off its mint new railway station at Manduadih. Modern, with digital signage and barrier-free access, Manduadih has been developed as a model railway station. The City Railway Station is next on track.The Swachch Bharat drive is at a feverish pitch in Varanasi. Some 4,000 new dustbins have been installed across the city in the last four months to get rid of garbage dumps that routinely crop up in the neighbourhoods of most Indian cities.Cleanliness messages are all over the city, through posters at bus stops, ghats and other public places, awareness campaigns, street plays, and puppet shows. Urban development ministry held Swachchtha Sarvekshan (sanitation audit) last month to assess progress on this key parameter. Six NGOs, 14 eminent artistes as sachchta ambassadors, and 90 swachchtha aagrahis are reinforcing the need for sanitation among people.The city has started a door to door garbage collection system across all 90 wards to keep dumps from building. Its solid waste composting plant at Karsada is composting about 600 tonnes of garbage every day.Of the 9,702 individual households aimed to be made open defecation free under Swachch Bharat targets, only about one-fourth are done so far. But Varanasi municipality said it will cover all remaining ones by December 2017.The city has built 75 new public toilets, taking the total number to more than 170. It has also planned 600 new urinals with one-fifth of them for women. A Kashi toilet locator app is under development to help tourists locate nearest washrooms.“The city is getting cleaner mainly because they are constantly telling us that we need to make Banaras clean — for us, and for the tourists who are important for the livelihoods of many in this city,” a tourist guide of 10 years told ET. “Tourists I work with keep talking about need for clean washrooms and dustbins, and that is beginning to happen now with PM Modi making it his mission,” the person said.A lassi vendor near a dug-up road pointed to a Sintex dustbin near his stall and said, “They installed this dustbin here and just told me to ask all people to drop their garbage there. I am sitting here all day and have started reminding people. They don’t mind listening.” Under the Centre’s Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), Rs 90 crore has been allocated for the city. Mayor Ram Gopal Mohley said the ancient Durga Kund is being redone. Heritage poles are coming up and facades of heritage building are being repaired.Municipal commissioner Shrihari Pratap Shahi said 34 major roads are being upgraded under HRIDAY, 86 major points in the city, including Bharat Mata Mandir and Queens College, are being improved. “By the year end, this should be completed. We are also going to start heritage music walk soon,” Shahi told ET.The streets are being dug up to execute the power ministry’s mega plan to go completely underground with power cables. One mohalla already has all its power cables underground, and if things do go to plan, by mid-2018 most of the digging would have given way to colonies without power cables hanging overhead.As much as people in the city complain about the inconvenience caused by the physical upheaval on in the city, most also feel optimistic about the end result. “This digging is endless and everywhere… I am only hoping this will end soon and this city will be liveable again,” said Satya Narayan Mishra who runs auto near the ghat area.A grocery store owner near Tulsi Ghat said, “We have put up with equally bad roads earlier as well. Let us see if this time around, this round gets us to Kyoto.” Modi had signed the Kashi-Kyoto protocol in August 2014 to revive Varanasi with the help of the Japanese city.There are, however, many a tricky territory en route to Kyoto.The municipality is in a difficult spot over the sewage it generates, treats and dumps into Ganga. Estimates are that by 2018, it will be able to put in place a sewage treatment system to at least handle the sewage generated as on date by the city. Varanasi creates 330 mld sewage per year against a treatment capacity of no more than 110 mld — a figure unchanged since 1986.A main sewer line that has been laid went too deep and will require to be pumped up to a location before it can be utilised. For this it needs 50-100 acres of land. The municipal commissioner conceded this was a problem, and said every effort is being made to acquire land at the earliest. The Varanasi ring road project, meant to decongest the city, was to be completed by mid-2017, but that too is delayed due to land acquisition trouble.Varanasi district magistrate Yogeshwar Ram Mishra, however, told ET that most of the issues had been sorted out following a recent favourable order by the High Court and things will get moving post elections. Mayor Mohley, a BJP leader, blamed the state government for the delays. “The state government is not always cooperative. Still, we are hopeful by 2018, Varanasi will be a highly improved and beautiful city,” he told ET.The DM, however, categorically rejected any coordination issues between the Centre and the state. “There is a lot getting done in a small city at the same time. You will see the first set of results by mid-2017 itself,” Mishra said. As of now, the DM said, the biggest challenge in the city was traffic management and preventing encroachment — an inconvenience that will stay until ‘Model Varanasi’ struggles its way out of dug-up roads.