Although the riverfront is far from complete, city and state authorities have flaunted its rehabilitation all over India, winning numerous government awards and recognition from the international consulting firm KPMG. In his barnstorming campaign for prime minister this year, Modi made the river a byword for responsible development.

"Those who are singing the tune of 'inclusive growth, inclusive growth,' I ask them to visit Sabarmati riverfront," Modi said at one campaign stop.

But experts say that underneath Modi's aggressive boosterism lie familiar shortcomings. They contend that the growth has prioritized a prominent middle class — the symbol of a rising India, those who can afford plane tickets and riverboat rides — while neglecting poor families displaced by new construction.

The policies have contributed to a widening wealth gap in India, which ranks among the most inequitable societies in the world. Although the overall economy has more than doubled in size in the last decade, one-third of the population — about 400 million people — still lives on less than $1.25 a day, according to World Bank figures.

Overhauling the Sabarmati required one of the largest urban resettlement programs undertaken in India. Tens of thousands of poor riverfront families were given space in government-built apartment blocks, but most were located on the outer reaches of the city, all but disconnected from transit networks, utilities and people's former livelihoods, the families said.

Some of the buildings were unfinished or lacked potable water, problems that took city authorities years to resolve. Hundreds of families never secured apartments because they were missing paperwork, activists said, forcing many into temporary camps where they have languished.

"There's been a very successful narrative about how this is inclusive development,"said Renu Desai, a professor of urban planning at CEPT University in Ahmedabad. "Whereas what you really see is not different from other cities in India. It's the marketing that stands out."

More than 1,000 uprooted families still live in tents in a remote temporary housing site at Ganeshnagar, 10 miles from central Ahmedabad, boxed in by a recycling plant, electrical transmission towers and the city's largest trash dump. Most arrived in late 2011, during the last phase of slum evictions from the Sabarmati riverside, with city authorities promising to move them to apartments within two months.