Taxpayer Money Down the Drain: AMC Set to Repeat Failed Mithakhali Road Model at Mansi Circle for ₹43 Crores

The sheer lack of financial accountability is evident in how the project’s tenders are being handled. The engineering department initially prepared an estimated cost of ₹42.32 crores plus GST for this 2.5 to 3-kilometer stretch. Despite the massive scale of public funds involved, the AMC is preparing to award the contract to Devers Construction Company, which submitted a bid 18.69% higher than the official estimate. Total expenditure will comfortably blow past the ₹43 crore mark—a massive premium paid out of public pockets for a model that has already failed elsewhere. The proposal is now being fast-tracked for approval before the Road and Building Committee.

Aesthetics Over Utility: Shrinking Roads in a Traffic Crisis

The "precinct area" blueprint focuses heavily on side elements like wide footpaths, plantation zones, and dedicated four-wheeler parking spaces. While these features look good on paper, they systematically choke the existing width of the main driveway.
Ahmedabad is currently grappling with a severe explosion in vehicle numbers, causing daily gridlocks and massive commuter distress during peak hours. Yet, the AMC remains completely indifferent to the reality on the ground. By allocating vital road space to non-driving zones, the corporation is actively reducing the space available for cars and two-wheelers, virtually guaranteeing worse traffic jams for a project that costs ₹43 crores.

Blind Eye to Past Blunders

This isn’t the first time the AMC has forced this failed model onto the city. The corporation previously used the exact same design for the stretch from Mithakhali Six Roads to Girish Cold Drinks, passing by Induben Khakhrawala up to the Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge.
During that project, the public outcry over rapidly shrinking road widths grew so severe that right before the corporation elections, former Deputy Mayor Jatin Patel and former Standing Committee Chairman Devang Dani were forced to step in and halt the work. However, demonstrating a complete lack of long-term accountability to the residents, the AMC quietly resumed the exact same work shortly after the election results were declared.

Unanswered Questions and Zero Accountability

With the Mithakhali fiasco fresh in everyone’s minds, the corporation is showing zero transparency regarding the Mansi Circle project. There is no official clarity on how the reduced road width will accommodate the area's heavy traffic flow, or how the proposed parking layout will prevent further bottlenecking.
By treating public funds as an open treasury for repetitive, counter-productive beautification drives, the AMC continues to prove that it values bureaucratic box-checking over the actual daily survival of Ahmedabad’s commuters.