Articles by Darshan Desai

In a terrible tragedy on July 27, 2024, three young IAS aspirants drowned in floodwaters that deluged the basement of their coaching centre in Delhi’s crowded Rajinder Nagar area. The basement was being illegally operated as a library. A magisterial probe conducted in the aftermath of the incident highlighted grave regulatory lapses on the part of the building and works departments of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) as well as the management of the centre. Despite several reports of misuse and legal violations in previous years, no action had been taken. This, however, is neither the first nor a…

“The idea for an emission trading system germinated after a team of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and J-PAL (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab research centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) came to Surat sometime in 2012”. This is Jitubhai Vakharia, president of the South Gujarat Textile Processors Association. “During a meeting with them, I realised we were wasting money on compliance with environmental laws under a corrupt inspector raj," he says. Jitubhai was recalling the days when some 300 dyeing and printing mills in Surat were notorious for vomiting noxious gases through their chimneys. Today, ten…

“Primary Education is grass-roots education on which the pillars of the future get built,” says  Raghav Kataliya also known as Raghu Ramakdu (toy) of Mithyala Prathmik Shala in in Saurashtra region in western Gujarat. “I am happy that the concept I started in 2020 is now being implemented across Gujarat.” The 32-year-old math teacher is known for his creative teaching skills. For instance, he uses an umbrella to teach patterns and his shirt to teach multiplication. Worried about his primary school students missing out on their studies during the lockdown, Raghav conducted classes for his students in batches in open…

The orders were verbal, with no paper trail. Curiously, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation was the last to implement it. In one fell swoop, four BJP-controlled municipal corporations directed their executive wings to launch a drive to remove Ahmedabad's street vendors selling eggs and other non-vegetarian eatables at roadside stalls. One reason given for these verbal orders was that the sight of non-veg food displayed in the stalls hurts the religious sentiments of the Hindus. The drive to remove all such street vendors from the streets began from Rajkot on November 9th. Vadodara was next, followed immediately by Bhavnagar and Junagadh.…

“Our mindset is such that we want everything free,” says Umesh Desai director of water resources at Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Ahmedabad. That mindset led to much initial resistance when resident associations in about 15 apartment complexes in Ahmedabad decided to install individual water meters and started charging for the water consumed by each apartment. Given that in most Indian cities, charges for utilities like water and electricity are heavily subsidised and nowhere near actual production costs, and free water and electricity is a sop most political parties offer during elections, it took some convincing the Ahmedabad flat owners…

A deadly plague. A committed and determined municipal commissioner. An aware and active citizenry. That was the beginning, in 1994, of Surat’s remarkable 25 plus year journey: from being the country’s dirtiest city with zero basic infrastructure, to the second-best managed city with well-maintained civic infrastructure. “The biggest success of the then commissioner S R Rao was that he changed the mindset of an entire population” says textile industrialist, Indravadan Mahadevwala. “Till then, we had a municipal corporation only by name.” Surat citizens were always known to be the happy-go-lucky types. Its decentralised textile industry had prospered enough to profit…

Two large drainage holes almost incessantly vomit filthy, stinking, dark liquid into what has become a cesspool. Wild vegetation and slum pockets encircle its peripheries. While just a few metres away are tall residential and commercial structures that have mushroomed in recent years. The cesspool is the Makarba lake in Ahmedabad. Today, this sprawling pit is where rainwater and sewerage converge to create a veritable breeding ground of mosquitoes and stray dogs. And this is not an isolated instance of a once clean lake in the city being turned into a foul water body.  Makarba is a historical natural lake, which…

Even as the COVID-19 contagion hits new peaks, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani is pushing his slogan of “Harega corona, jeetega Gujarat” (Corona will lose, Gujarat will win) to convey an 'all is well' picture and underline the fact that COVID-19 will not halt the state’s development. But what did come as a surprise was the recent announcement of the expansion of the civic limits of the municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Surat, Gandhinagar and Bhavnagar. The reason for this soon became obvious--- elections are due in these six municipal corporations, all controlled by the ruling BJP in November-December. Poll…

They came. They saw. They left. The Central team that visited Gujarat on July 17-18th to assess the state’s response to the continuing surge in COVID-19 cases in Ahmedabad and Surat did just that, even as the Ahmedabad Medical Association (AMA), on July 17th, filed an SOS writ petition in the Gujarat High Court. The petition expressed serious concern over the low number of tests being conducted and on the state’s dilly-dallying on granting approval for more testing laboratories. The AMA also sought a direction that tests at the OPD level should be permitted. It was only on July 15th,…

The percentage of deaths from COVID-19 in Gujarat is among the highest in the country, even as the number of tests remains among the lowest, government denials to the contrary notwithstanding. Numbers apart, the fact that the state was consistently trying to cut down on testing got some credence, when on May 10th, it made it mandatory for all private hospitals to get government approval before testing patients, admitted for treatment of other ailments, for the coronavirus infection. The Gujarat High Court however rescinded the order on May 29th, in response to a PIL. Another evidence of the Gujarat government’s…