Shah launches Ahmedabad projects worth about ₹1,400 crore, starts housing draw

Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated and laid foundation stones for works worth about ₹1,400 crore in Ahmedabad on Monday, November 9, at events in his Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, and started a computerised draw for thousands of low-cost homes. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel was present.

Of the total, works worth around ₹1,024 crore belong to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), and about ₹400 crore to the Gujarat roads and buildings department and the Government of India, according to the Home Ministry’s account of Shah’s speech. The mayor, Hitesh Barot, had put the number of projects at 27 ahead of the event; later accounts say about 30.

Homes, water and a flyover

The draw covered more than 9,000 houses, according to reports from the event, including 1,232 permanent flats and 16 shops built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for residents of the Ramapir No Tekra slum in Vadaj. Shah handed house keys to beneficiaries. Before the event, Barot said the AMC had built about 7,800 economically weaker section units at 11 locations and had received more than 97,000 applications. The Home Ministry release gives no house count; the figure of over 9,000 comes from reports of the event.

Shah said that once the Ramapir No Tekra project is fully implemented, more than 55,000 people will have social security, recreation, education and health facilities in a single complex. Two primary schools were opened the same day. He recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scheme in 2007 to rehouse slum residents with permanent homes, and said nearly one lakh slum dwellers in Ahmedabad are covered.

On water, he inaugurated a 200 million litres a day treatment plant at Jaspur and a 7.4 km trunk main. Barot said the drinking water projects reach more than 12 lakh families.

On roads, the ISKCON-Sanand elevated corridor on SG Highway, a six-lane project estimated at ₹464 crore, was part of the programme. Shah said the four-kilometre ISKCON overbridge work began on Monday and, when finished in three years, would let people travel from Sarkhej to Gandhinagar in far less than the two and a half hours it now takes. The chief minister described the corridor as newly completed and said it would ease traffic for lakhs of daily commuters. The two accounts differ on whether the structure is open or still to be built.

Foundation stones were also laid for a ₹62.31 crore tropical forest on the Sabarmati Riverfront, senior citizens’ parks, yoga corners, drainage networks, bus depots and terminals, rising mains and stormwater pumping stations. A pump house for the Bopal-Ghuma area is meant to end waterlogging there. Shah said he had promised residents of the area a system before 2029.

Drug-free Gujarat

Shah used the platform to repeat the target he set at a Gujarat security review in Ahmedabad on November 7 (see our earlier report on the drug-free India goal). He said the Modi government has set December 31, 2029, as the deadline for a drug-free India and asked Gujaratis to make the state drug-free before December 31, 2028.

A control room and the toll-free 1033 helpline begin on December 1, he said, with a mechanism to act within three hours of any tip about drugs. Callers’ identities will be kept confidential. De-addiction centres are being set up, and he asked teachers to meet parents when a child’s behaviour changes. He also administered a pledge to residents to help keep the area free of drugs.

Politics of the day

Shah said the opposition party that governed the country and Gujarat from 1947 to 1995 never paid attention to areas like Ramapir No Tekra, and that the poor kept voting for it while their houses were not built. He said change began in 1995 with the election of the first councillor from the area, and that he himself was elected MLA from the seat in 2012. He said works worth ₹25,000 crore have been completed in the Gandhinagar constituency in seven years and repeated his aim of a “Green Gandhinagar and Developed Gandhinagar”. No response from the Congress to these remarks had been found at the time of writing.

Patel, who wished the gathering a happy Diwali, also pointed to internal security gains under Modi and Shah, citing the end of Article 370, the new criminal laws and action against Naxalism. Others on the stage included state minister Rushikesh Patel, MPs Hasmukh Patel and Dinesh Makwana, and state BJP president Jagdish Vishwakarma.

Why it matters to residents

For the thousands who applied for EWS housing, the draw decides who gets a flat; the mayor’s figure of more than 97,000 applications for about 7,800 units shows the scale of demand. For commuters on SG Highway, the elevated corridor is meant to cut jams, and the Bopal-Ghuma pump house targets monsoon flooding. The Jaspur plant adds 200 MLD to the city’s drinking water supply.

What next

The 1033 helpline and drug control room are due to start on December 1, 2026. The ISKCON overbridge, by Shah’s timeline, is three years from completion.