3.3 Brief overview – BMC and New Town

3.3 Brief overview – BMC and New Town –

 Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality: This is the oldest and most populated municipality within the BMC. Rajarhat Gopalpur includes wards 1 to 26 of the

Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, which comprises dense and populated regions namely Lake Town and Baguihati.

 Salt Lake / Bidhannagar: Salt Lake or Bidhannagar is a planned satellite town in the eastern fringes. Salt Lake was built in the early 1960s to relieve the rising population pressure on Kolkata and accommodate the burgeoning population of

Kolkata. Salt Lake comprises the wards 29 to 34 and 37 to 41 of the present

Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation.

Figure 3.3 : Planned developments at Salt Lake

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/85296574@N00/10451623713

 Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, NDITA (Sector V): A unique characteristic of NDITA is that while its resident population is estimated to be 900, the floating population is 1 lakh. All these commuters work in the service sector consisting of IT/ITES, Financial Institutions, Telecom, Healthcare and

Food Services (Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, 2009-2010).

NDITA is one of the key economic activity generators of West Bengal.

 New Town: New Town is another planned satellite township, is located outside the boundary of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. New Town falls under the jurisdiction area of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA).

New Town, presently a statutory planned development area, comprising new residential developments, commercial establishments like City Centre 2, Axis

Mall, Home Town mall and IT developments, was once villages, namely

Rajarhat and Bhangor. The areas of Rajarhat and Bhangor which were subdivided into mouzas. These regions of Rajarhat and Bhangor, consisted of huge acres of cultivable lands and water bodies, which have been acquired and developed (New Town, Kolkata, 2018) through planning interventions.

 East Kolkata Wetlands: Wetlands still dominate the topography of this area.

Known as ‘bheris’ in the local language Bengali, East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW) are one of the recognized Ramsar sites in India. The wetlands cover an area of 125 square kilometers, and include salt marshes and salt meadows, as well as sewage farms and settling ponds. The wetlands are used to treat Kolkata's sewage and the nutrients contained in the waste water sustain fish farms and agriculture (East Kolkata Wetlands, 2018). Pisciculture or fish farming is done in these nearby bheris, mostly under public private partnerships.

Figure 3.4 : East Kolkata Wetlands

Source: http://www.earthsmiles.net/0214/articles001_features.html

 Sukanta Nagar (presently ward 35): Sukanta Nagar is a well-planned township with areas divided into sectors and blocks. Sukanta Nagar comprises

a mixture of posh localities and rehabilitation zones, which was initially developed to provide housing to rehabilitated and underprivileged people on the periphery of Salt Lake. The people living here currently were originally residents of Duttabad who got rehabilitated here in the late 1980s after their land was acquired by the government for Salt Lake stadium.

 Earlier Gram Panchayats (presently wards 27 and 28): This constitutes of the erstwhile village area of Mahishbathan II Gram Panchayat and portions of the Bidhannagar municipality. The Mahishbathan II Gram Panchayat comprised of the mouzas, namely, Tarulia, Mahishgot and Thakdari which are currently ward 27 of BMC. There were other villages which were parts of Before the formation of BMC in 2015, ward 1 of the Bidhannagar municipality comprised of the mouzas, namely, Nayapatti, Mahishbathan and Polenite, is presently ward 28. Within the study region, there is the Keshtopur canal (Khaal) which drains into the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW). This Keshtopur canal acts as a divider between the wards 27 and 28, and houses several settlements on the canal-front (khaalpaar) on either side of the canal.

Figure 3.5 : Locating the study area geographically by highlighting the unplanned developments in grey, and the planned developments in the surroundings

Source: Google Maps

The absence of any available planning documents (land use plan or LUDCP) in the study region, has not only hindered development in the region, but has also affected the work process in the initial stages of this dissertation programme. This is the sole reason

why the study region and the surrounding planned developments have been represented only through satellite data, Google Earth. In the above map, the study region with the wards 27 and 28 has been highlighted in grey. The surrounding include the planned townships of Salt Lake, New Town and NDITA, and the nearly planned development of Rajarhat Gopalpur municipality.

Figure 3.6 : Locating the study area geographically at the mouza level

Source: Google Maps

The subsequent map, represented below, shows the study region at a greater detail at the mouza level. At this level, ward 27 is to the north of the Keshtopur canal (highlighted in blue), and comprises the mouzas Tarulia, Mahishgot and Thakdari, having a total ward area of 1.21 sq. km. Among the mouzas in ward 27, Thakdari has the highest geographical area of 0.55 sq.km, which is the highest among both the wards. Tarulia has an area of 0.47 sq.km and Mahishgot is the least in terms of geographical area, covering only 0.19 sq. km. On the southern side of the Keshtopur canal, is ward 28, which is comparatively much more populated than ward 27, but is slightly lesser in terms of geographical area. Ward 28 covers an area of 1.06 sq. km. This ward comprises the mouzas of Nayapatti, Mahishbathan and Polenite. Among these, Mahishbathan has a higher area of 0.50 sq. km., while the other mouzas of Nayapatti and Polenite,