Ahmedabad: They are among the largest slums in the western part of the city -the Rama pir no Tekro and Parikshit Nagar, spread over 75 acres in Vadaj area. They will be redeveloped by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) as part of the ambitious `Smart City' initiative. The idea here is to house slum-dwellers in 1-Room-Kitchen (IRK) apartment blocks and free 64 acres for developing a green patch which will serve as lungs for the city.

This ambitious plan did not come up so easily. A study conducted by assistant professor of PDPU's School of Liberal Studies, Neeta Khurana and researcher, Dr Ritu Sharma, says that the civic body's in-situ slum redevelopment carried out by private developers in Lakhudi na Chapra in Stadium area and Kailashnagar in Sabarmati were key to understanding the reasons for the success of this rehabilitation effort. In the past decade or so, more than 33,000 housing units at 37 different sites in the city were constructed by the AMC and Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) under the JnNURM's project. Most who were allotted these EWS houses were project-affected families of Sabarmati riverfront, BRTS and widening of the Kankaria radial road. People were relocated from areas like Khanpur, Kagdiwad and Raikhad to as far as Danilimda and Vatva where EWS housing units existed.

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Ahmedabad's aim to be a 'zero slum city' is laudable. But this can be possible only if projects for redevelopment or upgrading of slums are given a definitive push.The projects should ensure that families remain socially integrated and do not lose their livelihoods.The government should also ease the process of allotment of houses, relax conditions for slum-dwellers to access loans and launch a skill development centre to support their earning capabilities.