Influence of planned urban development in Kolkata’s peri-urban areas: A case of Mahishbathan Gram Panchayat
2.3 History of the study region – a socialist and political view The north-eastern peripheral regions of Kolkata is a region of various extremes. The high end housing, the IT parks and commercial complexes, hotels, shopping malls, entertainment complexes and convention centres on one hand. On the other hand, informal settlements, urban villages and vacant lands lined this region. Moreover, the regions of New Town and Rajarhat which is being promoted and developed to provide more housing to Kolkata’s middle class population, is also turning out to be the destination for the urban poor. The urban poor working in the neighbouring regions like Salt Lake and New Town, are mostly using informal methods, either directly or indirectly, to secure their accommodation here. Studies related to this region have been related predominantly to the logic of formal planned development on one hand versus urban informality on the other. Ratoola Kundu in her paper on “Examining gray areas of urban development” posed several questions regarding this planned-unplanned aspect and the formal-informal nexus in Rajarhat. One of the first questions related to this overall region, included the location for the new township of New Town. Other questions also comprised of whether the urban poor were getting integrated or excluded in this scenario. Also, with respect to the formal-informal context, the exact meaning of this informality was questioned. Thus, through her research, urban informality has emerged as a mode of urbanization that is not just restricted to the urban poor, but along with formal means of urban development, the poor are getting spatially excluded to an extent (Kundu, 2009). The overall history of this region has been a very dark one. This regions had been socially and politically infamous due to certain issues, which had not been showcased by the local media in West Bengal due to political reasons. A snapshot of this regions’ history is as follows – -
Land Acquisition process in 1995: To set up Rajarhat and New Town, the government used the old colonial system used during the British rule to acquire lands. The Land Acquisition Act (1894) was enacted to acquire the 21 Mouzas of land. Thus, 7000 hectares of agricultural land and water bodies in 21 Mouzas came under acquisition and the process was started in 1999 under the Act. According to estimates, there were approximately 2.5 lakh people residing in the area who were either evicted or were otherwise adversely affected. A total 25
