An Ahmedabad-based citizens' group calling itself Abad Amdavad has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi warning that Ahmedabad is nowhere near ready to host the Commonwealth Games 2030, and that the city's civic condition may embarrass the nation unless urgent, structural reforms are pushed through within the next four years.
In its letter and an accompanying blueprint titled 'Amdavad 2030', the organisation, led by its president Jatin Sheth, has flagged that Ahmedabad has been officially confirmed as host of the 2030 Centenary Commonwealth Games while India is simultaneously chasing the 2036 Olympic ambition with the city at the centre of that aspiration, yet the same city has been declared one of the least resilient climate change cities in the world, a contradiction that the group says the government cannot afford to ignore.
The submission is blunt about what is broken. It states that nearly 200 road cave-ins occur in Ahmedabad every year, causing frequent accidents, some of them fatal, and that this number is only growing with time. It points out that fatal road accidents are rising dangerously because driving and traffic rules are violated by what it calls "rodent citizens" in the absence of adequate, timely and desirable deterring punishment, and that the Metro Rail project has failed to develop paid parking facilities near its stations.
It adds that the Bus Rapid Transport system, which should have reduced the use of personal vehicles, has failed miserably, and that AMTS and BRTS continue to incur heavy losses while failing to provide required services, pushing citizens towards private transport and worsening traffic, air pollution and parking chaos. The letter notes that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, launched on 2 October 2014, has completed twelve years, yet the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has failed to begin segregated waste collection at source despite huge central funding.
It further states that the Sabarmati is the second most polluted river in India despite crores being spent, because AMC has miserably failed to establish and efficiently operate Sewage Treatment Plants, and that the river is now considered dead, a shame for Ahmedabad and for the nation, especially given its sacred identity.
The group argues that the problem is not a shortage of projects or money, but the absence of integration, speed, quality, professional management and accountability, and that the Municipal Corporation must be converted from an implementing authority into a regulatory agency only, since it currently has a large number of engineers on eleven-month contracts and vacant higher posts that adversely affect timely decision-making.
It cites the telecom sector, airports and airlines, defence, and private electricity and piped gas supply in Gujarat as examples where private participation produced dramatically better results, and demands that roads, footpaths, bridges, traffic management, solid waste management, water and sewage management, gardens, public washrooms and public transport be handed over to the best and proven private sector players so that faultless results are achieved within a stipulated period.
The blueprint proposes an Ahmedabad Urban Transformation and Climate Resilience Mission with a 2030 delivery horizon and a 2036 strategic perspective, a 48-month implementation roadmap, independent quality assurance at every stage from design to maintenance, a public dashboard showing budget, agency, deadline, progress, quality and status of every major project, and performance-based contracts with measurable outcomes, with success measured not by money spent or projects announced but by fewer road deaths, fewer cave-ins, less flooding, cleaner Sabarmati water, higher waste segregation, better public transport, more surviving tree canopy, cleaner public toilets and greater citizen satisfaction.
The group makes clear it is not seeking another package of projects but a delivery system, and warns that if the situation is not addressed in time, the highly polluted Sabarmati and the city's crumbling civic services will be a shame for Ahmedabad and for the nation when the world arrives for the Commonwealth Games.
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