Can Ahmedabad Become India’s Next Big Metropolis?

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Ahmedabad gained national limelight when it won a presidential award for being India's cleanest major city, but the city has miles to go before it gets to compete with the likes of Mumbai and Bengaluru, or to host the Summer Olympics a decade from now. Here's a look at the Amdavad Municipal Corporation's efforts as it labours to make Ahmedabad India's next megacity.

Ahmedabad gained national limelight on 18th July when the President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu, conferred to it the award for being the cleanest major city among those with a population of more than 10 lacs. The other runners ups were Lucknow and Bhopal.

According to the central government’s Swachh Sarvekshan rankings, Ahmedabad has beaten larger metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad to find itself among the cleanest cities in the country.

Mind you, that is not an easy task at all, especially for a major city with close to a crore people and witnessing an influx of work-seeking immigrants every day.

Why Ahmedabad?

There is a reason why the central government wants to prop up a major city like Ahmedabad, which is the largest city in the Prime Minister’s home state, as a premier destination that can provide good jobs, enable a decent standard of living, provide effective municipal services and unmatched connectivity with other major cities.

India is the most populous country in the world with close to 1.5 billion people, but we do not have many metropolis-sized cities that can absorb millions of educated and skilled workers without totally falling apart.

Cities that have exploded in the past twenty years, such as Bengaluru, Gurugram, Hyderabad and even Pune, are struggling to control the rising rush of vehicles, provide essential services like drainage systems, water supply or road maintenance. In the Swachh Sarvekshan rankings, Chennai and Bengaluru, in fact, featured among the dirtiest major cities in India.

China, which has a comparable population, has done a much better job when it comes to growing dozens of major cities that boast extraordinary GDPs and are large population bases. Today, India has only three metropolitan cities that have a GDP of more than $100 billion. China has an astounding 43.

Similarly, China has at least 12 cities that have a population of more than 10 million. India has 3. These numbers show that it essential for a rising and aspirational India to morph state capitals and cities with potential into major metropolis.

The latest Swachh Shehar rankings now make it clear that the central government is throwing its weight behind cities with potential, such as Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Bhopal.

There are two major reasons why Ahmedabad finds itself at the core of the government's long-term plans. First, the metropolitan area, which has over 9.2 million people, has been pitched as the host city for the 2036 summer Olympics, and second, the city is soon going to have bullet train connectivity with Mumbai, India's largest metropolitan region.

Rapid Modernization

Unless Ahmedabad becomes one of India's major metropolitan cities, it will not be able to compete with Mumbai and the bullet train corridor will become an enabler of one-sided workforce migration and subsequent drain of wealth.

 Which is why the city administration has gone full throttle towards making Ahmedabad the rising new star of the west, not just to qualify for the Summer Olympics, but to make it the country's prime investment destination along with GIFT City and Dholera – its future financial and manufacturing hubs. 

The Amdavad Municipal Corporation has begun preparations for modernizing and cleaning the city by launching a rapid encroachment removal campaign. It removed 4 lakh square kilometres of encroachments from the Chandola Lake region in two phases, and also removed over 450 illegal structures in the Akbarnagar locality of Bapunagar.

 In May, the Corporation demolished over 20 illegal factories and a mosque in the Gujarat Housing Board area in Rakhial. Over 2.6 square kilometres of area was cleared, and AMC has built fences around the area to prevent unauthorised encroachments in the future.

AMC is also running a project worth hundreds of crores to revive at least 143 lakes in and around the city which have become victims of illegal encroachment and garbage dumping. These lakes will be cleaned up, restored as public spaces and used as stormwater reservoirs to prevent floods.

In the first phase, the state government has transferred ownership of 81 lakes to the Corporation, enabling AMC to carry out desilting, landscaping and beautification without any legal or administrative troubles. Another 25 crore project to clean up a further 25 lakes is also underway.

Sabarmati Riverfront Expansion

To beautify the city further, the state government has also attracted over 80,000 crore rupees from private investors to expand the Sabarmati riverfront, the city's most visible tourist attraction, over four phases.

Once construction is complete, the Sabarmati riverfront will extend all the way from Indira Bridge to Gandhinagar with the final three phases extending the riverfront by over fifteen kilometres to an overall length of 38 kilometres.

In addition, AMC has kept aside 65 crore rupees to modernize three bridges over the Sabarmati river, and to remove traffic congestions and enhance ease of movement, is building 20 flyovers, 19 railway underpasses, 10 river bridges, and 22 railway overbridges.

Expressway Connectivity

The Gujarat state government has also put its money where it matters the most- high speed connectivity between Ahmedabad and other major cities and destinations. The Ahmedabad Dholera expressway is nearing completion, and will not only connect the two industrial cities, but will also shift the burden of logistics and goods transportation to the upcoming Dholera International Airport.

The GIFT city development towards the north of Ahmedabad has already made the state a major financial services hotspot, and Dholera bears the promise to make the state a manufacturing giant, possibly one of Asia's best.

Ahmedabad also enjoys expressway connectivity with Vadodara, and the ambitious one lakh crore Delhi Mumbai expressway will also pass through Ahmedabad.

Add the upcoming bullet train connectivity with Mumbai, a rapidly expanding metro network, a massive railway station in the making, and the Tharad - Ahmedabad Expressway that connects with the Amritsar-Jamnagar Economic Corridor all may act as key ingredients to make Ahmedabad one of India's finest and futuristic metros.

Preparing for the Summer Olympics

As for preparations for the Summer Olympics 2036, Ahmedabad has already displayed its credentials of hosting major sporting events by hosting the Cricket World Cup final at the Narendra Modi stadium.

A brand-new sports complex, called the Para High Performance Centre, costing over 600 crore rupees and spanning more than 1.15 lakh square metres, is under construction next to the Narendra Modi Stadium.

According to Home Minister Amit Shah, the sports complex will have ten big stadiums. When completed, the complex will simultaneously host multiple indoor and outdoor competitions and will combine with the Sardar Patel Sports Complex and the Narayanpura Sports Complex to host major sporting events like the Olympics.

The Gujarat government said in June that to prepare for the Summer Olympics, it plans to start work on a third ring road project to decongest existing roads.

Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar have also unveiled an ambitious plan costing up to 64,000 crore rupees, out of which up to 23,000 crore rupees will be spent to build and modernize stadiums, sports complexes and other venues.

Embracing the Future

Ahmedabad is undergoing tremendous transformation, and so are cities like Hyderabad, Lucknow, Bhuvaneshwar, Noida, Indore and Jaipur, and this bodes well for a growing India that desperately needs over a dozen modern, large cities to host an educated, skilled and aspirational population and prevent brain drain.

Will these ambitious plans turn into reality? Or will their development plans crumble under the weight of mounting costs, poor administrative decision-making or simply a lack of interest among stakeholders? We will only have to wait for India's first Summer Olympics to find out.