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Ahmedabad: whither land?

With rapid urbanisation, only 0.392 sq mtr per person open space available, much below the prescribed standards..

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Rapid urbanisation has turned the city into a concrete jungle. Naturally, large open spaces or playgrounds for recreation have become a thing of the past.

In the last few years, huge buildings have come up on most of the open space available.

Surprisingly, the city has only 0.392 sq m of open space per person against the prescribed standard of 8-10 sq m open space.

Following a huge influx of migrants coming in search of jobs or business, the city has grown rapidly, swallowing open spaces. If calculated, the city has a total of 21.84 lakh sq m (218.46 hectare) open space reserved in various zones. Open space includes plots, parks and gardens.

Out of the total 21.84 lakh sq m, open space reserved under town planning (TP) comprise 4.58 lakh sq m while 17.26 lakh sq m consists of gardens.

According to the urban development plan, formulation and implementation (UDPFI) guidelines, a city should have 8 to 10 sq m of open space per person.

Considering the city’s population of 55.68 lakh, the open space per person comes to 0.392 sq m, which is far below the specified standard.

Plus, data on open space obtained from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) suggest that a majority of this lies in the new west zone.

“If looked at the total size of gardens in the city, which is 17.26 lakh sq m, a major portion of 8.72 lakh sq m is in the new west zone, including 86 small and large gardens,” said an AMC official.

North zone has the least number of gardens, only 16, covering an area of 33,639 sq m. Similarly, Ahmedabad has 4.58 lakh sq m of land reserved as open space under town planning, out of which the majority is located in the new west zone with 2.19 lakh sq m and least in the central zone with 9,095 sq m. Incidentally, the city had 12.9 lakh sq m (129 hectare) of open space in 2006.

“If seen from a satellite, Ahmedabad has a lot of open land. Only 20% of it is covered by buildings while roads have used up another 20%. The remaining 60% is open land. However, on the ground, one does not feel that the city has enough open land and gardens,” said urban planner and architect Bimal Patel, adding that the city lacks large public parks like those in New Delhi or Bangalore.

“The reason for this is Ahmedabad’s building regulations, which end up fragmenting the open land of the city into wasteful bits of margins and small private open spaces that are difficult to use or maintain. If our bye-laws were different, the city residents would have enjoyed a vast area of open land,” Patel indicated.

21.8 lakh sq m is the open space area reserved in the city across various zones

17.3 lakh sq m is the total garden space in the city — 8.72 L in new west zone.

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