Gujarat Hardlook | Redemption for Ahmedabad’s key Ashram Road, but at a snail’s pace

“The road which was once known for being the most happening in terms of movie theatres, has lost its sheen over the years as these closed down. Today smaller malls have movie screens taking away the business from the traditional cinema halls,” says Manubhai Patel, President, Multiplex Association of Gujarat.  However, after the inauguration of the Sabarmati Riverfront – built by reclaiming land on the banks of the river – in 2012, the Ashram Road was back in the spotlight with multinational food joints opening outlets here. Another big reason for the focus on Ashram Road is the fact that it is the only way to access the river from the western side of the city. Besides two younger political parties, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have their state offices on this road.

Reimagining a road

A year ago, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) took up the Ashram Road redevelopment project, called the ‘Gaurav Path’. This road covers a length of 10.5 km from Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) on the Vasna-Paldi crossroads at the southern end, through Usmanpura-Vadaj junction. It is likely to end just after the RTO, to enable the Gandhi Ashram Memorial and the Precinct Redevelopment Project to consolidate the spaces along the two sides of the road.

A view of Ashram road in Ahmedabad. (Express Photo by Nirmal Harindran)

The AMC invited bidders for the project, but found no takers despite inviting bids thrice in the last one year. “We quoted the project cost as per government approved prices, but the feedback received points at lack of financial viability. We hoped for some response while bidding the third time over, but unfortunately that too did not happen,” a senior AMC official told The Indian Express.

The last date to apply for the third time tender process was March 14. With the Model Code of Conduct in place, a decision in this regard is expected only after the results of Lok Sabha elections are declared on June 4.“We are planning to club this project with two or three other similar projects increasing the project cost from Rs 35 crore to around Rs 200 crore,” the official said. According to the official, the Ashram Road project would be offered along with a similar project in other parts of Ahmedabad to a single bidder, as per the plan.

The project with an estimated total cost of around Rs 35 crore has two phases, the first stretch from Paldi cross road to Dandi Kooch circle (around 5.2 km) is slated to have heritage pathways showcasing Ahmedabad’s past, replicas of Gandhian heritage and symbols of Ahmedabad’s textile heritage. The second phase would extend up to the Regional Transport Office (RTO) on the north end with the same features, including a larger share of space for the pedestrian.
Stressing on the preference for greenfield (fresh) projects over brownfield (expansion) ones, Prof Rutul Joshi from CEPT University said, “The focus has been on the outer peripheral new areas rather than redeveloping the old ones.

M J Library at Ashram Rd in Ahmedabad. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)

Barely 5-6 new buildings have come up in the last ten years as everyone wants to build outside the city. We need to redevelop large tracts of land with defunct use and allow systematic redevelopment. People prefer buying houses in peripheral areas like Gota, Vaishno Devi, Bopal, Shela. This is a complex problem seen in cities like Bengaluru and Pune.”

More lights, walkways, green spaces

The project envisages themed illuminated landscape, including beautification of the street with thematic plantation, lawn development including ornamental and flowering shrubs between the property line and proposed pedestrian walkway all along the stretch.

A focus on pedestrian movement forms the core of this project. With a minimum clear footpath 3 meters wide on both side of the Ashram Road, kerb ramps of standard gradient, tactile pavers (width of 300 mm) guiding the pedestrians with vision impairment and a pedestrian walkway to be raised 150 mm from the proposed adjoining service road are a part of the redevelopment design.

Elaborating on the importance of Ashram Road, Manvita Baradi, Founder and Director, Urban Management Centre, Ahmedabad, who also serves as a member of the Heritage Conservation Cell of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, says, “Buildings like the RBI, ATMA (Ahmedabad Textile Mill Owners’ Association), Gujarat Vidyapith, Navjivan should be notified and conserved in their context and then redevelopment should be planned around so that these buildings are not lost.”

“You needed a spine parallel to Sabarmati River that was Ashram Road. Listing and grading of buildings outside the walled city is important for heritage that should be conserved and preserved. These are the knowledge points of evolution of concrete material, architectural knowledge, the bungalow typology that was never Indian but taken from the West, the housing typology that got established, we have to guard and conserve these. The 1920s style bungalows will not be there in the coming years anymore,” said Baradi.

Among the iconic structures that moved out are the Gujarat High Court. A major landmark on the Ashram road — the Old RBI building opposite the ATMA House was brought down recently with its operations shifting to the RBI building on the Gandhi Bridge side of the Ashram Road. Among the iconic buildings to return is the Patang Hotel, which reopened last October.

The ‘Eye of Ahmedabad’ that came up in 1987 after three years of construction work, was relaunched in October 2023 as Patang Re-evolve, the city’s only revolving restaurant originally designed by the famous Hasmukh Chandulal Patel, the founder of the Ahmedabad-based architecture firm HCP Design Planning and Management Private Limited, now run by his son Bimal Patel.

Members and supporters of Gandhinagar Queer Pride foundation painting a wall near IIM crossing, Vastrapur with rainbow colours to make the city more queer friendly on Sunday. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)

“When the entire city is trying to move out to the SG Highway, SP Ring Road, we decided to bring Ahmedabad’s icon back to the heart of the city. To cater to people who live on this side of the city, too. Built at a time when most structures in Ahmedabad were not more than four storeys, Patang Hotel with its 22-storey revolving restaurant, was ahead of its time,” said Neel Thakkar, director of Patang Hotel.

Inspired by the ‘Chabutaro’, a traditional tower-like structure where birds are fed, it rotates 221 feet above the ground, on the banks of the Sabarmati River, while offering a panoramic view of both the old and the new Ahmedabad.  “This will be the first building to have a project mapping where Patang’s exterior will be used as a surface to showcase. We have roped in the experts who have done this for Burj Khalifa,” Thakkar says, talking about the future plans for the property. “A lot of corporate houses are showing interest in the area. With the kind of high-end office space, there will be different clientele on the road with national presence too. Cities can keep moving but we cannot ignore the heritage. SG Highway of SBR may be the finest development but the old city heritage will never lose its charm,” says Thakkar.

Though the retail businesses have shifted out from Ashram Road, corporate entities are still holding on.
Citing the redevelopment of Srinagar’s Lal Chowk and Polo View market, Keshav Varma, Chairman of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Ltd, told this paper that the revival of the core city serves economic logic for any area.

Riverfront of hope

Stressing on pedestrian spaces and movement, Varma, who also chairs the Centre’s High Level Committee Urban Planners constituted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs said, “Initially, we had plans to develop Ashram Road to be like Delhi’s Connaught Place with covered areas. As a historic street of our country, the spine of Ahmedabad, it has to be driven by pedestrians and not cars which is the case across the world where central business districts are pedestrian oriented. Unencumbered pedestrian movement has to be done.”

Further, with plans like Central Business District (CBD), the area to be developed along Sabarmati Riverfront on both its banks between Usmanpura and Ellis Bridge along Ashram Road stretching nearly 5-6 km in length measuring 126 hectares, this is slated to be the new commercial hub of Ahmedabad, and is expected to give a push to the Ashram Road.

While the Sabarmati Riverfront is planned as a cultural and social hub, the Ashram Road running parallel to it is the business hub. “Redevelopment of Ashram Road will have beneficial effects on the Sabarmati Riverfront, both economically and socially but it (redevelopment) has to be inclusive,” said Varma.

Of the proposed 204 hectares to be reclaimed in the Riverfront project, 85 per cent is expected to be devoted to public amenities, while 14 per cent has been earmarked for commercial development through auctioning. Around 50 plots are proposed to be auctioned, their sizes varying between 1,142 sq m and 6,100 sq m. The FSI would be offered depending upon the plot size, officials said.

The project aims to be self-financing to achieve its goals without relying on any funding from the government.
The CBD development, similar on the lines of Town Planning (TP) scheme applied across the city, will witness pedestrian friendly roads by requiring buildings to align their façades towards the roadside, buildings without boundary or compound walls along, wider roads requiring 6 metre wide arcade and active frontage for pedestrians.
With the joint teams of AMC and AUDA (Ahmedabad Urban Development Corporation), the area will have a mix of both new as well as redevelopment. AUDA’s office is also along the Ashram Road along with AMC’s zonal Usmanpura office and one of the oldest schools Mount Carmel School and the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industries building.

Over the years, with a lot of construction and over bridges, the road became congested and with the recent development of Sabarmati Riverfront Road, people are using it as a bypass. “It is required to bring life back to the old city areas. The road has lost its glory. Today, you will not see many buses plying on the road but only cars, flyovers are used as parking spaces. We need to keep the walkability factor in mind,” said Prof Shivanand Swamy, Director, Center of Excellence in Urban Transport, CEPT University.

A 2020 research paper published in Journal of Urban Design Emergence by researcher Sweta Byahut, Jugnesh Mehta from CEPT University, and Bimal Patel from HCP on sub-optimal land utilisation patterns in Indian cities advocates for more public spaces than open private spaces (unutilised floor space within private domains). It noted that the land under public domain in Ahmedabad “accounted for only 18.36 per cent of the total area” as against the 35.44 per cent available in other cities globally.

The research focuses on four major commercial areas in the city — Ashram Road, CG Road, Prahlad Nagar, and SG Road. “In Ashram Road — an excessive 57.2 per cent of land is left as private open spaces, and buildings occupy only 25.6 per cent. In fact, in the four major commercial areas of Ahmedabad (Ashram Road, Prahlad Nagar, CG Road, and SG Highway), private open spaces account for as much as 54 per cent, which is more than half of all the land,” the study states.