Gandhinagar City Case Study

1. Gandinagar City.
• Gandinagar lies on the west bank of the Sabarmati River.
• There was a determination to make Gandinagar a purely Indian enterprise, partly because the
state of Gujarat was the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi.
• In order to pay a tribute to his contribution in the independence of the country, the capital of
the state is named as Gandhinagar.
• For this reason, the planning was done by two Indian town planners : Prakash M Apte and H. K.
Mewada, who had apprenticed with Le Corbusier in Chandigarh.
• Gandhinagar is the only new capital of a state in India that was designed and planned by
Indian town planners in service with the state government.
• It was planned and implemented between 1965-1970.
History.
• In 1960, the Indian state of Bombay was split into two states, Maharashtra and Gujarat; leaving
Gujarat without a capital city.
• In the beginning, Ahmedabad – a commercial hub of Gujarat was chosen as the state capital.
• It was later proposed that a new capital city be constructed along the line of other new state
capitals, particularly Chandigarh.
• Upon completion of the new city, the administrative capital of Gujarat was shifted from
Ahmedabad to Gandhinagar.

2. The Sector.
• Gandhinagar is planned on the principle of sectors, each measuring about 1 km×0.75 km in
length and width.
• The sectors are numbered from one to thirty and they are formed by seven roads running in each
directions and cutting each other perpendicularly.
• Out of 30 sectors, 27 sectors are residential and the remaining 3 sectors are non-residential.
• Each sector has a primary school, a secondary school, a higher secondary school, a medical
dispensary, a shopping center and a maintenance office.
• Gandhinagar is developed on the neighborhood concept.
• The total area of the site is about 5,738 Hectares.

3. Network of Roads.
• Gandhinagar’s streets are numbered (e. g. road no. 1, road no. 2 up to road no. 7).
• Cross streets named for letters of the Gujarati alphabet (e. g. k, kh, g, gh, ch, chh, ja).
• The letter roads run parallel across the city perpendicular to the number roads and
both the roads types intersect each other to form a grid, with each block or square in
the grid given a sector number.
• Each intersection is marked by signal names such as CH1, CH2, CH3 or JA1, JA2. This
provides a high degree of organization and evenness to the various parts of the city.
• All streets are aligned at 30 deg. N-W and 60 deg. N-E to avoid direct glare of
morning and evening sun while driving.
• All streets are in the grid iron patterns.
• The campus has been designed to be largely free of cars and other motorized
transport.
• Pedestrians and cyclist have special scenic routes separate from vehicular roads,
through the campus.
• While vehicular access has been provided to all housing blocks, parking at the
academic blocks has been restricted mainly to cycles.
• For internal mobility, the campus provides environment friendly electrical vehicles for
universal access and as a means of public transport.
• The Gujarat assembly building is in the center of the city to make it close to all the
residents.

4. Salient Features of Gandhinagar.
• Afforestation : The undulated possessed rich soil and so are indigenous species like Neem, Babool, Mango and barriers wear planted under the
afforestation scheme.
• Drainage : The complete sewage treatment plant consists of grit chambers, clarifiers, sludge digestors, drying beds etc. is located at a distance of about
18 km towards South-West.
• Electric Supply : All the electric lines within the town are laid with underground cables.
• Parks and Playgrounds : The average standard adopted for the open spaces is about 1.50 to 2.0 hectares per 1000 populations.
• Population : The town is designed to accommodate about 4,00,000 persons with possible physical expansion on west side if found necessary in future.
• Railways : The railway station in Gandhinagar is situated far away from the township.
• Water Supply : The water is supplied from the river Sabarmati and collected in a reservoir of capacity of 27 lakh liters. The plan ensures zero discharge
of waste water. Onsite harvesting of rainwater. Waste water is used for growing food and fodder plants.
• Zonal Centre : For every four to five sectors, a Zonal Centre is provided and it includes cinema, dispensary, bank, post office, police station, shop of
selective nature, etc.
Sakshi Gadakh.
4th Year B.Arch.