6,500 Students Form Human Rangoli at GMDC Ground as Gujarat Confronts 41 Lakh Ageing Vehicles
Two stories shaped Ahmedabad's week: thousands of students formed a giant human Rangoli in a tribute to 25 years of public service, and official state data revealed the city carrying nearly half of Gujarat's vast ageing vehicle burden — a day that captured both the city's civic ambition and its infrastructure pressures.
🤝 6,500 Students Form Human Rangoli Depicting India at GMDC Ground; CM Bhupendra Patel Attends
Around 6,500 students from schools, colleges, and educational institutions across Ahmedabad gathered at the GMDC Ground on Tuesday to form a human Rangoli depicting India — a formation that required precise coordination across thousands of participants and emerged as one of the most visually striking community events of the season. The gathering was organised by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and its School Board as part of the 'Seva Sankalp Abhiyan,' a city-wide programme marking 25 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public life. The theme of the event, 'Seva na Rango, Rashtra na Sang,' translates from Gujarati as 'In the colours of service, together for the nation' — a phrase that captured both the civic spirit of the gathering and the intended message of collective contribution to national life. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel attended the programme, personally interacting with participating students and inspecting the completed formation at the ground. The event drew students from a wide cross-section of Ahmedabad's educational institutions, giving it a genuinely city-wide character rather than representing any single school or community organisation. A human Rangoli — traditionally a floor art form created during festivals with coloured powder — took on a new scale at GMDC Ground, where thousands of individual participants became the living pixels of a national image visible only as a whole from an aerial perspective. For students who took part, the experience of being one element in a coordinated city-scale composition offered a form of civic education that goes beyond a classroom. The Seva Sankalp Abhiyan is framed as a movement to highlight the continuing value of public service, and Tuesday's Ahmedabad event stood as one of its most visible regional expressions this cycle. [3]
🗳️ Ahmedabad Home to Half of Gujarat's 41 Lakh Old Vehicles as Scrappage Policy Falls Short
More than 4.12 million vehicles in Gujarat have exceeded 15 years of age, according to official state figures, with Ahmedabad alone accounting for nearly half that total — making the city the undisputed epicentre of what is becoming a pressing safety and environmental challenge for the state. The data has drawn renewed scrutiny to the Gujarat government's vehicle scrappage policy, which offers road tax concessions to owners willing to retire their ageing vehicles, but has struggled to achieve meaningful uptake despite that financial incentive. Multiple structural barriers are working against the initiative simultaneously. Scrappage infrastructure across the state remains underdeveloped — certified dismantling centres are sparse, organised collection points are limited, and the compensation mechanism has failed to persuade owners that retiring a vehicle they know well is worth the disruption. In parallel, an informal scrap market continues to operate outside the government framework, absorbing some vehicles on its own terms but without the traceability or environmental compliance the policy envisions. Rising new vehicle prices compound the problem: even accounting for road tax concessions, the full economics of scrapping an older functional vehicle and replacing it with a new one remain unfavourable for most ordinary families in Gujarat. Owners consistently weigh the practical utility of a working vehicle against the uncertain benefits of the transition, and the working vehicle tends to win. The result is a large and growing proportion of the state's — and Ahmedabad's — road users operating vehicles with older safety and emissions standards, sustaining both road safety concerns and environmental costs that the scrappage policy was designed to address. [4]
Sources: [3] EdexLive · [4] GujaratSamachar English