Four months ago, Dimple Gandhi booked a 2bhk flat at Ishwarnagar along the Kharicut canal for Rs 11 lakh. Today, the apartment costs nothing less than Rs 18 lakh. The reason: The flat now overlooks a small patch of garden developed on a slab over the canal by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Soon, many like Gandhi will be grinning thanks thanks to the Gujarat government's plans to give a 20-km stretch along the canal, that's currently treated as an open sewerage, a green facelift. The icing on the cake: infrastructure projects worth Rs 1,000 crore, including BRTS, being earmarked along the stretch under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) by AMC. AMC has assigned plots for wide roads, exclusive sewage trunk line, educational institutions, a sports complex each in Nikol and Odhav for Rs 10 crore each, a Rs 40-crore multi-speciality hospital and dental college in Khokhra, recreation areas around lakes in Ghodasar and Lal Bahadur Shastri maidan for Rs 4 crore each. "We want to make the area more liveable and upmarket,' says AMC commisioner IP Gautam, hinting at plans for Rs 100 crore worth of housing projects for the urban poor as well. A beautiful and green Kharicut canal is poised to do for the Naroda to Vatva Kotha stretch what the Sabarmati riverfront project has done for Ashram Road