Where once makeshift shelters crowded the hillside of Ramapir Tekra in Ahmedabad, modern residential buildings now stand — and that sight moved Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah to words that Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel shared publicly on Monday, 9 November 2026.

CM Patel quoted Shah on X: 'રામાપીરના ટેકરાની ઝૂંપડપટ્ટીના સ્થાને બનેલા આધુનિક મકાનો જોઈ મારું મન પ્રફુલ્લિત થઈ ગયું' — 'Seeing the modern homes built in place of the slums at Ramapir Tekra, my heart was filled with joy.' The post, accompanied by a video, underlines the political weight both leaders are placing on the in-situ redevelopment of one of Ahmedabad's most visible informal settlements.

Ramapir Tekra: From Informal Hillside to Formal Housing

Ramapir Tekra has long been one of Ahmedabad's prominent slum clusters. Its in-situ redevelopment — replacing jhuggi settlements with pucca, amenity-equipped apartment blocks on the same land — is precisely the model the central government designed when it launched the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) in June 2015. The PMAY-U slum rehabilitation component was built on a simple but ambitious premise: eligible urban households should not be displaced to the city's periphery but upgraded where they already live, preserving community ties and livelihoods.

Gujarat has been an active participant in that national Housing for All mission. For the state's BJP leadership, Ramapir Tekra represents a flagship proof-of-concept — a named, visible site where the policy narrative can be anchored to brick-and-mortar reality.

Shah's Joy, Patel's Amplification

The choice to quote Amit Shah rather than issue an independent statement is deliberate optics. Shah, as a senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister, carries enormous political weight in his home state of Gujarat. His personal emotional response — 'my heart was filled with joy' — frames the housing project not as a bureaucratic achievement but as a human one. CM Patel's amplification of that sentiment signals alignment between state delivery and central vision.

The video attached to the post is expected to show the completed housing blocks, giving voters and beneficiaries a visual document of the transformation. The urban poor of Ahmedabad — the primary stakeholders of this redevelopment — now have formal addresses where they once had temporary structures.

PMAY-U and the Replication Question

The attention Ramapir Tekra is receiving raises a natural question for urban planners and residents in other Gujarat cities: where does the model go next? The state government is expected to push similar in-situ slum redevelopment phases in other Ahmedabad neighbourhoods and beyond, with PMAY-U providing the financial architecture. The progress of completions at Ramapir Tekra and the rollout of comparable phases elsewhere will be the next metric to watch.

A slum that once defined a hillside in Ahmedabad has become a symbol on a national policy billboard — and the ministers who built it are making sure everyone sees it.