What Has Changed in Ganeshnagar – Dumping Site of PAPs in Ahmedabad?

With a team of documentary makers of a channel, I had a chance to revisit Ganeshnagar after about 3 and half years. Last I went was with a group of students, when one room of the present school building was constructed. Then, I wanted the students of planning, housing specialisation doing their studio exercise on rehabilitation strategy, to see how not to do rehabilitation. In 2012, when I went, I was a bit sceptical about going for the fear of being recognised as a member of the Buch Committee involved in the monitoring of Sabarmati riverfront rehabilitation and on whose head the blame of inadequate and inequitable rehabilitation has been laid. Luckily then and even now, my identity did not come to the fore and hence in the way of my visit.

The living conditions in 2016, remains as we had documented at the Centre for Urban Equity (CUE) in Ganeshnagar in 2012 (See http://cept.ac.in/UserFiles/File/CUE/Advocacy/Living%20Conditions%20in%20Ganeshnagar_Resize.pdf). Prior to that, in 2009, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working with the poor and displaced in the city had held a public hearing on displacements (http://cept.ac.in/UserFiles/File/CUE/Advocacy/Public%20Hearing%20on%20Displacements.pdf), also documented extremely poor living conditions in the location. But, there is some change; the height of the garbage dump at Pirana, just across the road from Ganeshnagar, has increased and can now be seen from Ganeshnagar. Earlier, we could only smell the garbage, as the public hearing report documents, but could not see it.

For those who know Ahmedabad, coming from Narol circle and way to crossing Sabarmati river, Pirana garbage dump, which now is about 50 to 60 meters high, comes on the left side, that is to the north of the road and Ganeshnagar is on the right, that is to the south of the road. Standing in Ganeshnagar, if one faces north, one can first see high tension lines passing through, and then the Pirana garbage mountain. This garbage mountain did not exist 4 years back. The garbage dump was and the olfactory senses revolted on reaching Ganeshnagar, but, now one sees, one smells and one experiences the garbage dump! This is the first big change.

Ganeshnagar site has been used for dumping the displaced households from various infrastructure development projects post 2008. Term dumped is used, as they were literally dumped and not shifted through any pre-planning. Hence, there are evictees of road projects, flyover projects, Kankaria lake development projects and the biggest displacement project of all Sabarmati Riverfront project. In 2011 November, about 4,000 to 5,000 households evicted from the Sabarmati riverbank, evicted under the Gujarat High Court order, were dumped on the site in a short period. Ganeshnagar became a large temporary rehabilitation site. The idea was that these households would then be given a permanent rehabilitation unit. Which many were given; taken to Vatwa rehabilitation site, Odhav rehabilitation site, etc. But, many are still left on the Ganeshnagar site. Some 20,000 BSUP (Basic Services for the Urban Poor) dwelling units constructed in the city proved rehabilitation to the project affected people of the city. Imagine, what would have been the plight of these households if JNNURM was not designed and if BSUP was not introduced! In December 2016, about 850 households still remain in Ganeshnagar. Some of them were from the riverfront, and have been given an allotment letter for a plot of land in Ganeshnagar. Strangely, there was no map accompanying that would tell them which plot of land in the large site.

There were some households who were evicted in 2008 and have been living on the site since then. Post 2011 dumping of the riverfront evictees, our public hearing and pressure of the NGOs who went to assist the large mass of evictees in 2011, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) constructed water supply points with water taps and public toilets. The water taps are broken, the hardware vandalised and stolen, and no water is coming.

Public Toilet in Ganeshnagar

The public toilets are not maintained and are now filled with shit. The area around the public toilets is also full of animal and human shit, plastics and all kinds of rubbish; completely unusable! This forces everyone to defecate in the open! Do we have to go anywhere to witness hell! Nehruji said about Kashmir, if there is heaven on earth, it is here it is here! We have to say about Ganeshnagar, if there is hell on the earth, one of them is here! The second change is that the facilities provided by the AMC for the residents of Ganeshnagar rehabilitation site, as many have been allotted plot of land on the site, are now under total disrepair and unusable.

Broken water taps

The third change is that two rooms of an anaganwadi, which also came through the pressure of the NGOs, have been constructed. Thankfully, they are working. A lady came at about 10.30 am and was cleaning. There is also a school building now. The school is working. But, the rooms are also used for gambling and drinking when the school is closed. The caretaker (chowkidar) of the school, who had objected to the abuse of the school premises, was murdered two months back.

Anganwadi at Ganeshnagar

School at Ganeshnagar

The fourth, and probably the most dangerous change that has come is setting up of a unit of ‘gau rakshak dal’ (a cow protection unit – dal in a sense is a mini battalion). The organisation was constructing a pucca building in the centre of the site. The representative of the unit, who got a whiff of our visit to the site, came instantaneously as we entered, even before we could get out of our vehicles. He asked us in some minor menacing way, who we were. Our answer to him was the same question bounced back. After telling his affiliation and on our query as to what he was doing here, he said, he was providing water to the site residents. Any guess as to what would be coming forth here in the future! The impacts of demonitisation were ofcourse not missed out on us.