Amraiwadi
Amraiwadi is an area located in Ahmedabad, India.[1]
Amraiwadi | |
|---|---|
Neighbourhood | |
| Country |  |
| State | Gujarat |
| District | Ahmedabad |
| Government | |
| • Body | Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation |
| Languages | |
| • Official | Gujarati, Hindi |
| Time zone | UTC+5:30 (IST) |
| PIN | 380026 |
| Telephone code | 91-079 |
| Vehicle registration | GJ 27 |
| Lok Sabha constituency | Ahmedabad WEST |
| Civic agency | Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation |
| Website | ahmedabadcity |
Amraiwadi is located in the eastern segment of the city, which has historically developed as an industrial area; since the beginning of the 20th century the cotton textile mills were located there and later the new industrial estates housing small scale industries. While the cotton textile mills were typical Fordian welfare units, with organized and well paid labour force housed in employee housing, the small scale industrial units were typically unorganized manufacturing. The textile mill housing was referred to as chawls, which are single room dwelling units laid in a row and provided with common water and sanitation facilities. East Ahmedabad is marked by such low income housing units. The workers of the unorganized manufacturing units begun to live in informal settlements, either developed as squatter settlements or informally subdivided private lands coming under various reservations of the city’s Development Plan (DP) or for acquisition under the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act (ULCRA),1976. Such settlements developed on a large scale in this segment of because of the demand from this industrial working class who typically desired a house close to their work place. Such informal and squatter settlements developed on a large scale in the 1980s and 1990s.
Another significant phenomenon occurred during late 1980s and early 1990s; the cotton textile mills went into decline and closed down. But, their chawls remained and continued to house the former cotton textile mill workers. The parent unit, the textile mill having closed down and the residents of these chawls no longer being the employees of the mills, the mill owners were not interested in maintaining such dwellings. Since these chawls were under rent control legislation, the owners could not increase the rents. The owners therefore did not renovate the chawls where conditions deteriorated into slum type of housing. A few chawl owners offered the occupants to purchase their dwelling units so that the former could get rid of the burden and such transactions indeed took place in many chawls. In our field work we have come across several instances where a few dwelling unit occupants had not purchased the units when the majority had. In all, the land tenure arrangements became complex. In some cases where the owners stopped collecting the rents and the occupiers became the de facto owner.