The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has opened an information centre on the Sabarmati riverfront near Gujarat Sahitya Parishad office to cater to inquiries coming from foreign delegates and others participating in the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit 2009. The centre will function for a week.

The Sabaramati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited (SRFDCL) has revealed the building footprint for the 10.5 kilometre stretch of the riverfrront for both the east and west banks for the first time. Going by convention, one can imagine buildings as high as 100 to 150 metre on the riverbanks.

A total of nearly 50 individual building footprints, with sizes varying between 5,000 square metres and 8,000 square metres on either side of the river, have been readied and would be put on display during the summit.

Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam, who had declared that the project was not profit oriented, said it is self-financed and the cost of Rs 1,500 crore would be recovered from the investment proposals.

The proposals are expected to be to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore.

Against 20 per cent of the reclaimed land approved by the government for commercial development, the AMC would go for 15 per cent of the 162 hectares.

The major chunk of 85 per cent would be for gardens and public utilities like roads and parks, he said, claiming the project would be environment- friendly. Of this 85 per cent land, 20 per cent would be for slum upgradation, he added.

Gautam said the information centre was opened to enable prospective buyers to choose from various sizes of plots ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 sq metres so that project work and construction of towers could go simultaneously. The development rules would be worked out after the AMC gets feedback from the visitors, he said.

Gautam said there would be no separate formula for levying property tax on buildings coming up on the riverfront, even though there would be separate rules for buying land.

A 24-metre road would be built between existing buildings and the plots on the reclaimed land, he added.

Giving status of the project, he said while the first phase was completed, 40 per cent of work has been completed in the second phase and the remaining would be finished by June. The whole project should be ready by December 2010, he added.

Latest works that are going on

-Work up to walk way level has been completed from Railway bridge to Vasna
-Retaining wall work has been 40% completed
-For clean river water, suez diversion work is on. Pipeline work is nearly completed from Dafnala to Sardar bridge. Intermediate pumping station, Terminate pumping station and rising pipe line works are on. Work in Sardar bridge to Vasna barrage stretch has been started recently. A duct is being created in this stretch to facilitate sue to reach up to the suez treatment plant near Vasna barrage.
-For work on level upper than walk way special 7 to 20 metre wide earth fill work is being done on both the sids of the river bank from railway bridge to Vasna barrage. General earth filling work is on from Railway bridge to Sardar bridge on the western side of the river. General earth filling work is nearly completed from Gandhi bridge to Nehru bridge.