Profile of Bodakdev, an industrial neighborhood of Ahmedabad: Understanding it through 3 Key Factors
Bodakdev in a Nutshell
One’s idea and perception of a neighborhood is generally that of a small vicinity surrounding the locality or area in which one has resided since their childhood or most recently has shifted into and is currently residing in. Neighborhood isn’t necessarily limited to some minute number of residential apartments or houses within a small radius of your house or which can be visibly seen by the naked eye, one can even consider a country as diverse as India to be your neighborhood. According to me, a neighborhood should be such that there should be an easy access of basic resources such as healthcare, medicines, education, groceries, housing and clothing, there should be maintenance of hygiene and sanitation and it shouldn’t be overcrowded with population and there should be adequate density between houses or settlements in order to avoid congestion of both traffic and people around you. In addition, it should be deemed safe and secure for urban families and especially for women and young girls. Most mishaps and disastrous events occur in industrially developed neighborhoods that do not witness any sort of regulations and protocols in terms of traffic management, parking, street sense as well as civilian behavior. It is therefore important to consider residing in a neighborhood that is well versed and equipped in these aspects. Bodakdev is often considered as a benchmark of development and growth by several stakeholders and architects, who take inspiration from the various structures in it and build other neighborhoods on similar grounds. But it is important to understand that with increased growth, comes deeper responsibility about population management, hygiene and several other factors concerned with humans. The management authorities need to be concerned about these aspects since there is no essential point of growth and development, if either of them hinder basic human existence in the neighborhood. It is therefore important to consider these aspects before venturing into further development and progress of any neighborhood.
Common Activities in Bodakdev
The people residing in this neighborhood take up recreational activities in their leisure time. The recreational activities include visits to amusement parks, visits to the cinema halls for watching movies, gathering at fancy restaurants and food joints with friends and family and a stroll in the public parks and gardens.
Bodakdev has many public parks and gardens for recreational activities, some of these include AUDA gardens constructed by the government, Varahi Public Park and so on.This neighborhood is also quite efficient in the educational facilities. Some of the well known schools in this neighborhood include the R.H. Kapadia High School, A-One High School, H.B. Kapadia High School, etc.
Concerns about Traffic Measures in Bodakdev
Bodakdev area of Ahmedabad city is among the oldest neighborhoods of western Ahmedabad. Popularly known as Bodakdev, it can also be identified by referring it as Judge’s Bungalow area since it is a neighborhood where the Chief Justice and other esteemed judges of the Ahmedabad High Court reside, so since the time when their bungalows had been constructed in this area, the area has been termed synonymously as Bodakdev and Judge’s Bungalow Area. Earlier, this neighborhood used to be a peaceful one with birds chirping around and a prevalence of lots of greenery as observed with growing amount of trees and plants being grown across the roads, near houses, etc. Also, it was a more tranquil environment with minimum number of residential settlements being constructed and thus leading to minimal population in the neighborhood in general and one could hardly notice any violation of traffic rules due to congestion and there was no honking by cars on the road. On the contrary, in the current time period, Bodakdev has become a neighborhood which is geographically considered to be at the centre of the city and in order to reach any given destination such as the S.G. Highway or Sindhu Bhavan Road or any other national highway, you need to pass through Bodakdev in order to reach your destination. This is the chief reason why Bodakdev has started getting overcrowded by population due to the economic benefits and feasibility one gets when residing in Bodakdev. There have been traffic congestions in the neighborhood on a daily basis and the intensity of car honking tends to lead to emotional disturbances and also hearing impairments to people. Considering the time crunch and intensive punishments to be endured when people reach late to work, many individuals tend to drive from the wrong side of the roads, leading to increasing amount of accidents and road incidents on a regular basis. Rash driving is another major factor that has gone deeply unnoticed in this neighborhood, considering the fact that most drivers are negligent about basic traffic. Rules and road safety. Since this neighborhood is transforming into an industrial area, individuals are not concerned about certain aspects that should go hand in hand with industrialization.
Pollution in Bodakdev
Pollution is a subsequent term which arises immediately after mentioning about traffic congestion, overcrowding and less density of physical settlements. Since the amount of vehicles on the road have been significantly increasing, there has been increasing amount of air pollution, land pollution and noise pollution in the neighborhood. Most of the people residing in the neighborhood have reported respiratory problems due to increasing discharge of smoke and other elements such as nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. Talking about the privacy and security aspects, Bodakdev was considered to be more safe and secure in the earlier decade than now since, there were less people to be interacted with in the earlier decade than in the current period and wandering in the neighborhood was much more safer back then as there were less people observed on the road, in general. Bodakdev can be considered to be quite an efficient neighborhood in terms of its development and availability of basic resources such as healthcare, education, groceries and medicines, but it can develop in a more productive manner if the population is regulated over there and the pace of commercial and industrial development is reduced.
