The Ahmedabad municipal corporation (AMC) began calling itself ‘Amdavad municipal corporation’ from August 2010 and also changed the English spelling of the city’s name on its logo and on its stationary and billboards.
Yet there is no consistency in the way the city’s name is spelt in English by different departments. Is it Ahmedabad or Amdavad? No one knows for sure.
One reason for the continuing confusion over the spelling is that the AMC has not taken any steps to make the change legally binding. Not only that, the civic body itself is erratic in the use of the revised spelling because the city is still called ‘Ahmedabad’ on the AMC’s website and the identity cards issued to its employees.
“No proposal has come to us for changing the spelling of the city’s name from ‘Ahmedabad’ to ‘Amdavad’,” said Kishor Rathod, municipal secretary, AMC.
Senior lawyer Girish Patel said that, according to the norms, the civic should get a proposal passed by the AMC standing committee and board, to change the way the city’s name is spelt in English.
The proposal should then be forwarded to the central government through the state government for the Centre’s approval. The changed spelling Ahmedabad can be implemented only after permission for this is granted by the central government, said Patel. He added that as there is no change the way the name is spelt and spoken in Gujarati, nobody takes the changed English spelling of Ahmedabad seriously.
Mayor Asit Vora, however, does not believe that a legal procedure has to be adopted to change the way the city’s name is spelt in English.
“We have not changed the name of the city. We just spell it the way it is spoken,” he said. However, Vora had earlier stated that the civic body would initiate the procedure to get a resolution passed by the AMC’s standing committee thereby making the new spelling of the city’s name official.
The opposition in the civic body had protested the change in the English spelling of the city’s name. “I had written a letter to the municipal commissioner asking him to retain the original spelling in English as it is associated with the founder of the city, Ahmed Shah. I will remind him to take necessary steps in this regard,” said Badruddin Shaikh, leader of opposition in the AMC.
It should be noted that the BJP had wanted to change the city’s name to Karnavati and had also passed a resolution in the AMC for this. But the central government did not grant permission for changing the city’s name.
