'IP Gautam made Ahmedabad a cleaner city'

IP Gautam, municipal commissioner of Ahmedabad city, assumed charge of the AMC in mid 2005. But he has been associated with Ahmedabad since 2003 when he was made in-charge secretary for Ahmedabad city. Gautam has led the city for half a decade as municipal commissioner of Ahmedabad in the decade that ended in 2010. When he took over as the city boss Ahmedabad was ranked fourth among most polluted cities in India. Gautam ushered in the CNG revolution. DNA spoke to IP Gautam on his experience in changing the face of a city more known for the riots of 2002 to a leader in urban development. AMC has won around 20 national and international awards in urban development works under his leadership.

My association with Ahmedabad dates back to 2003 when I was made in-charge secretary for Ahmedabad city. At that time, Ahmedabad was making headlines for being one of the most polluted cities and I was part of a committee formed by the state government to look into the issue. The committee was toying with the idea of switching over to CNG as fuel for its vehicles.

Meanwhile, I was made Municipal Commissioner of the city.

The biggest challenge for me was to convince or force around 55,000 auto-rickshaw drivers to convert to CNG. With the help of D Thara, who was city collector and G Mohapatra, I started a series of meetings with auto manufacturers, spare parts suppliers and banks to give loans and, the best part of the deal -- to convince auto-rickshaw drivers to buy new autos. A notification was issued to scrap auto-rickshaws registered before 1991. By convincing them we managed to switch 55,000 autos to use eco-friendly CNG as fuel. I also introduced CNG buses in the GSRTC. Now, Ahmedabad has gone down to the 64th position in the list of the most polluted cities in India. Chikun Guniya was another challenge that I had to face. It was a difficult decision to take and we introduced monthly mosquito breeding survey, which is now adopted by the state government.

Meanwhile, Gujarat government announced the year 2005 as 'urban development year'. Soon, under the JNNURM, projects like BRTS, storm water drainage line, sewer treatment plant and water distribution centre were started. At the end of the decade, Ahmedabad has won around 20 awards for public transport and for work done in urban development. Sanitation was bad when I joined AMC with a manpower crunch in health and solid waste eating away the citizens' health with 90% vacancies in the department.

I have recruited people in the majority of the areas. The sanitation awareness in the Nirmal Gujarat year brought a landmark change in making the city clean. Now all wards of the city have urban health centres and civic centres - a result of the e-governance programme started at the time when P Panirvel was municipal commissioner We have spent around Rs100 crore for water supply, sewer and sanitation apart from Rs200 crore to Rs300 crore for water distribution and drainage etc work. All these years I have laid emphasis on capacity building, be it heritage, medical, solid waste, and ensure that Ahmedabad does not suffer from manpower crunch in future."