Influence of planned urban development in Kolkata’s peri-urban areas: A case of Mahishbathan Gram Panchayat
Understanding the socio-political history - Exploring a region that had been socially and politically infamous earlier due to the issues like land acquisition, which involved oppression of the poor people during incidents of land grab and terror in the region. This land was earlier Bhangor and Rajarhat, was actually farm lands, where the primary occupation was farming and fishing. In addition, the history of this region has not always been showcased by media in West Bengal. Therefore, to explore this region from the ground zero level and understand the daily life of the people, had been one of the reasons of selecting this topic for the dissertation programme.
Inadequacy of studies done in this region - In addition, there have not been not many studies have been done with respect to this region. There are many studies which have been conducted only in the planned neighbourhood regions New Town and Rajarhat. But, this study region and this aspect of plannedunplanned influence has rarely been touched upon.
Thus, the main purpose of this thesis is to get a deeper understanding of the influence that the planned developments have on the unplanned study region. In order to get this broader picture, it is important to understand this region from different levels - macro level by having a contextual understanding of the overall region, ward level and mouza level (wards are sub-divided into mouzas) and finally into the micro level, through the settlements.
1.5 Methodology In order to achieve the above mentioned objectives, certain activities and their corresponding methods have been performed throughout the duration of this thesis. Therefore, the methodology followed can be elucidated in the subsequent paragraphs.
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