On Gandhinagar's 62nd Foundation Day, the city's lakeside became a canvas for renewal — trees planted, water conserved, and a pledge made for a greener capital. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel led three simultaneous programmes on Sunday, 2 August 2026 at Koba Lake in Gandhinagar, weaving together environment protection, water conservation, and social welfare into a single foundation-day statement.

At the heart of the event was a tree-plantation drive under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's national campaign 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' ('One Tree in Mother's Name'). CM Patel planted saplings at the Koba Lake premises with an explicit resolve to make Gandhinagar greener and to protect the region's environment and biodiversity.

'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' reaches Gandhinagar's lakeside

Launched by PM Modi in 2024, the Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaign asks citizens and officials alike to plant a tree as a tribute to their mothers — framing conservation as a personal, emotional act rather than a bureaucratic obligation. Gujarat adopted the campaign at the state level, and Sunday's event at Koba Lake marks one of its more visible urban deployments, embedding the national drive into a city-level milestone.

Koba Lake, located within Gandhinagar's urban limits, has served as a site for Gujarat's broader lake-rejuvenation and afforestation efforts. Conducting the plantation here ties water-body conservation directly to green-cover expansion — two goals Gujarat has pursued in tandem for over a decade.

A triple mandate: trees, water, welfare

The Chief Minister's Office described the day's agenda as a trividh karyakram — a three-pronged programme — covering environmental protection, water conservation, and social welfare. Anchoring all three under the foundation-day umbrella is a deliberate signal: that Gandhinagar's civic identity is being consciously linked to ecological responsibility as the planned capital enters its seventh decade.

Gujarat governments have long folded tree-plantation and water-body conservation into city and state anniversary events. What distinguishes Sunday's programme is the explicit invocation of a national campaign alongside local welfare work — amplifying the symbolic reach of what might otherwise read as a routine ceremonial drive.

Gandhinagar was founded in 1964 as Gujarat's purpose-built capital, designed on a grid of sectors and green belts. Sixty-two years on, its foundation day is being marked not just with ceremony but with saplings in the ground — a small but pointed act that the state government wants read as commitment, not calendar.