Parivartan (Slum Networking Project) — Ahmedabad's Four-Partner Slum Infrastructure Model

In 1995 the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) launched the Slum Networking Project, later branded Parivartan ('transformation'), beginning with a single pilot settlement, Sanjaynagar, before extending city-wide over the following decade. The programme rested on a four-partner cost-sharing structure: AMC supplied trunk infrastructure and technical support, private-sector and philanthropic donors (including the Arvind Mills/Lalbhai Group-backed initiative) co-funded works, the NGO network led by the Mahila Housing Trust (an offshoot of the Self-Employed Women's Association) organised women-led community groups to plan and manage connections, and participating households each contributed roughly Rs 2,000 toward their individual water, sewerage and drainage connection in exchange for legal recognition of tenure for the duration of the agreement.

The programme aimed to extend basic infrastructure — piped water, underground sewerage, storm drainage, paved roads, streetlighting and solid-waste collection — into informal settlements without relocating residents, by combining municipal, private, NGO and household resources and by making service connection conditional on a modest household contribution and recognised tenure.

Implementation combined AMC-provided trunk infrastructure with community-level organising: the Mahila Housing Trust and SEWA network mobilised women-led community groups within each settlement to plan layouts and manage individual household connections, while private and philanthropic donors co-financed the works alongside AMC and participating households.

By December 2005 the programme had reached 41 slum communities, connecting 8,703 households and roughly 43,515 residents to piped water, sewerage, drainage, paved roads, streetlighting and solid-waste collection. A household health survey associated the intervention with a fall in the crude death rate from 6.9 to 3.7 per 1,000, and in 2005 AMC received the Dubai International Award for Best Practice to Improve the Living Environment in recognition of the programme.

The World Bank and UN-Habitat cited Parivartan as good practice, and its four-partner financing model was referenced in slum-upgrading design in other Indian cities including Indore and Vadodara. However, expansion slowed markedly after the mid-2000s as municipal priorities shifted toward larger relocation-based housing schemes, and later assessments note that the programme reached only a fraction of Ahmedabad's total slum population before momentum faded.