Sentinel walk proposal ends up as all talk

In 2009, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (

AMC

) had proposed to revive the

sentinel walk

for the city walls. This concept had its origins in April 1915 when Scottish polymath and urban planner Sir Patrick Geddes had visited the city after a raging debate to demolish the city walls had engulfed the Ahmedabad municipality. After a threeday tour of the city, his verdict was to preserve the Old City walls.


Calling it the sentinel walk, the AMC had planned to invest on the lines of the London Roman Wall walk, St Helen’s Fort walk, the Hadrian Wall walk in Northampton for the city walls.


This now seems to be a pipe dream. Vegetation grows from a large portion of the city walls. At some portions, except for a small portion near Khanpur, centuries old brick mortar has started to crumble.

The AMC plan had envisaged for the revival of Old City walls almost 3.9km of which is left of the 7km that guarded the city from intruders and marauders and saved the city’s interest since 1486. There was an intention of Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited (SRFDCL) to integrate portions of the 1.7km stretch along the riverfront and even organize a sentinel walk on it to save the city’s glorious past.

“It was taken up in the SRFDCL board meeting twice and a small budget for a survey of the wall and the possibility of organizing a sentinel walk was also taken up,” says a senior SRFDCL official. The official added that references of Geddes proposing that two persons could actually walk abreast without being toppled over the wall was also suggested in the meeting. “A small flight of stairs to the top of the city walls along the riverfront with an iron railing all along for people to stand and look at the river flow past was proposed in the meeting,” says a senior AMC official.