Dayanand's World

Gujarat Series -11 THE TURNAROUND OF THE SABARMATI RIVER FRONT Sabarmati Riverfront is among the most innovative projects in the world. The project is an urban regeneration and environmental improvement initiative according to leading international advisory firm KPMG KPMG, one of the world’s top advisory firm has included Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project in the list of ‘100 Most Innovative Projects’ towards urban regeneration that make cities livable as well as sustainable. A release by the KPMG about the Sabarmati Riverfront states, “The Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project is an urban regeneration and environmental improvement initiative currently under way in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It involves the reclamation of a 10.5 kilometer stretch of the banks of the Sabarmati River, creating a new public space for cultural and civic institutions. Along the river, space will be made for recreation use and markets. The aim is to transform the stretch of river from...

Gujarat Series -10 Narendra Modi auctions his gifts and spends the money to promote Girls education In June every year, when most people heave a sigh of relief from the scorching heat, Team Gujarat including the CM himself goes out to villages and remote areas visiting primary schools. Do you know what the motivation behind that is? It is the passion of Narendra Modi to spread quality education to every child in Gujarat – especially the girl child and quip them with knowledge which shall help them in their future lives. The likes of Mayawatis and Laloo Prasad Yadavs should take a lesson or two from Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s style of governance, instead of accepting garlands of currency notes worth millions of rupees on their birthdays and filling up their individual coffers with public money. From the beginning of his tenure, Mr. Modi has made it a practice to auction the gifts received by him and donate the proceeds for the girl child education. Public a...

Gujarat Series -9 YEH NARENDRA MODI SAAB KA RTO POST HAIN – YAHAN RISHWAT NAHI CHALTI.. Much is made about India blindly imposing an alien Constitution and bureaucracy on the people of the Country.. While it’s true that several key portions of the Indian Constitution do not reflect the true aspirations of the soul of this ancient nation, it still provides a workable model. Our intellectual class and media, which has made a profession of abusing our large and “unworkable” bureaucracy rarely looks at how the same bureaucracy can be used to deliver the goods. Narendra Modi has used the selfsame bureaucracy to make Gujarat what it is today. Perhaps no other Indian leader has genuinely implemented the much-touted “single window clearance” as effectively and as consistently as he has done. An important but much-overlooked factor is Modi’s punctuality. Every single Indian politician wears his unpunctuality as a badge of pride whereas Modi’s decade-old record shows what kind of a s...

Gujarat Series -8 Swachch Gujarat – Nirmal Gujarat At the risk of sounding too eulogistic, it should be conceded that the State of Gujarat has a very distinctive methodology for bringing focus on burning issues. Every year is celebrated in the State as a theme year. This is the initiative of Narendra Modi. The success of the “theme year” celebrations lies in the tremendous detailing of every aspect of the execution, i.e., from planning the strategy, to implementation, role defining, to regular tracking and monitoring by the concerned department/s and reporting up to the highest levels. Recognizing the urgent need to address the issues related to cleanliness and sustainability aspects of environment, the state government declared “Clean Gujarat” or “Nirmal Gujarat” (in local parlance) as the theme for the year – 2007-2008. And, to show how serious the Government was in ensuring success in the area, a SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) was created with the sole purpose of stra...

Gujarat Series -7 Paani Bachao - the key to Prosperity of the state... Gujarat has always been a state with scarce rainfall...to the extent that when Mr. Suresh Mehta was the CM, the state had to resort to Cloud seeding and artificial rains. Hence its necessary that the people of Gujarat be acclaimatised with methods of water conservation. Shri Narendra Modi’s razor-sharp mindset captured this capacity of the Gujaratis and programmed it to be utilized for welfare and betterment of the society. Many schemes and yojnas adopted for water reservoir and conservation have tendered Gujarat, to be a Tanker free state. The height of Narmada Dam has been raised, which has yielded production of energy for Gujarat and the water shortage of the neighbouring state Rajasthan was also allieviated to a great extent due to canal network. In every rural region, more and more lakes and ponds have been dug deeper, which has aided in increasing the water level. The dedicated movement preva...

Gujarat Series -6 GUJARAT’S ‘ROAD’ TO PROSPERITY Hearing a PIL regarding a road-maintenance contract, the Bombay High Court recently observed that roads in neighbouring Gujarat are in better condition than Maharashtra. "People say that Gujarat has got best of the roads...as long as you have not crossed the border (into Maharashtra). It's a shame for our government that we cannot build good roads," said Justice J N Patel. As anyway I was to travel to Ahmedabad as part of my ‘discovery’ of Gujarat, we decided to take the Road route to check out the much tommtommed Roads. MY first problem was the first 75 kms stretch from my house in Thane to Manor on NH8, which has been witnessing horrific traffic jams at 2-3 points’ thanks due to the delayed work of building 3 flyovers on the Ghodbunder Road to the Vasai-Virar toll gate. Therefore, I decided to skip the first section of NH8 by going on a parallel road direct from Thane to Manor via Bhiwandi & Wada. ...

Gujarat Series -5 MODI’S ‘POWER PLAY’ AND GUJARAT’S TURNAROUND For two days, 30th & 31st July 2012 a major part of India including the national capital of New Delhi plunged into darkness due to a massive power grid failure. On 31st July, it was not only the Northern Grid but also the Eastern Grid that failed leaving more than 60 crore people and 19 states in the dark. Experts have called it India’s worst power crisis. However, one state that remained totally unaffected from the massive power crisis across more than half of India was Gujarat. Since those two days, there has been renewed focus on Gujarat’s success in the power sector. From international media houses, the Indian mainstream media to the netizens on Twitter, Gujarat’s “brightness” in the time of Delhi and other part’s “darkness” became the hot topic of discussion. On 1st August 2012, leading international newspaper Wall Street Journal carried a story titled “More Power to India’s States” in which it criticiz...