3.2 Historical documentation

BMC has a jurisdictional area of around 60.5 Sq. Km., which is 3.2% of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. BMC caters services to 6.33 lakhs population, which 1.27% of KMA population and 0.68% of the state’s population. According to census data and online sources (BMC official website), there are approximately 1.5 lakh households in BMC.

The maps shown above, firstly show the 4 municipal corporations within the Kolkata Metropolitan Area boundary, highlighting Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. Along with the 4 municipal corporations, there are also 38 municipalities within the KMA, which have not been highlighted here, as the main focus is towards Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation. The second map shows the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation in greater detail, also showing its neighbouring municipalities.

3.2 Historical documentation

Administrative history of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation

 1958 to 1965 - Salt Lake, also named as Bidhannagar, after then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, who visioned a planned satellite town to relieve Kolkata’s population pressure. The idea of finding an outlet for this increasing population through a new city by reclaiming the marsh and watery wastes in the east of Kolkata was hovering round the minds of the policy makers from a long time. After India’s independence in 1947, a Master Plan Technical Committee was formed to reclaim the region of Salt Lake in Eastern Kolkata. At last the idea of filling of these watery areas by sand and silt procured by dredging from the bed of the river Hooghly was conceived by Dr B C Roy. Thus, the work of reclamation was allotted to a Yugoslav Firm after floating global tenders. This project of Reclamation and Development of about 6 sq. miles of these watery wastes was inaugurated by Dr B C Roy on 16th April 1962 for the people of Kolkata. In this way, Salt Lake was developed as a township between 1958 and 1965, which is planned by a Yugoslavian planner Dobrivoje Toskovic (Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, 2009-2010).

 1960s - Bidhannagar was originally developed and built under the direct administration of the Irrigation and Waterways Department of the

Government of West Bengal. Originally, it came under the Public Works

Department (Bidhannagar, 2018).

 1980s – During the 1980s, Salt Lake came under the wings of Metropolitan

Development Department which was renamed the Urban Development

Department in 1991 (Bidhannagar, 2018).

 Early 1980s – In January 1984, India’s largest stadium in terms of seating capacity, the Salt Lake stadium was established. On the other hand, the establishment of the Salt Lake stadium also left a large number of people homeless. These people, originally residents of neighbouring Duttabad, were relocated to a planned resettlement colony Sukantonagar on Salt Lake’s periphery.

 1989 - A Notified Area Authority was set up to administer the area.

 Early 1990s – There was a proposal laid forward for merging the Bidhannagar

Corporation with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). However, this proposal completely failed to materialize.

 1991 – One of the first and major amusement parks of Eastern India, Nicco

Park, established in Salt Lake, to attract tourists and boost tourism in

Bidhannagar. Even to this day, Nicco Park, which is also referred to as the

‘Disneyland of West Bengal’, is located on a 40 acre site and is one of the most visited tourist spots in Kolkata.  1995 – In 1995, Bidhannagar got converted into a newly formed municipality,

Bidhannagar Municipality, which constituted 23 wards (later 25) within 5

Sectors of Salt Lake City. These 5 sectors were sub-divided as -Sector-I, Sector-

II, Sector-III and Sector-IV as Residential Townships, and Sector-V as

Industrial Area (Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, 2009-2010).

 1995 to 2005 – After becoming a municipality, Bidhannagar Municipality became responsible for all the municipal services (Nabadiganta Industrial

Township Authority, 2009-2010) including assessment and collection of property taxes in all the residential sectors and also in the industrial sector (Sector-V area).

 2006 - For ensuring proper infrastructural development required for setting up of industries and maintenance, the Government of West Bengal considered it imperative to constitute an Industrial Township under Section 385A of the West

Bengal Municipal Act, 1993. A notification was issued to this effect on 31st

January 2006 and thus, the new Township Authority called ‘Nabadiganta

Industrial Township Authority’ (Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority, 2009-2010) or NDITA came into existence.

 2008 - The New Town Kolkata Development Authority has been constituted under The New Town Kolkata Development Authority Act, 2007 (The West

Bengal Act of 2007) for rendering various civic services and amenities within

New Town, Kolkata and it has come into effect since November, 2008 (New

Town Kolkata Development Authority West Bengal, 2018). New Town was created to serve 2 basic purposes. First, establishing a new business centre to reduce the mounting pressure on the existing Central Business District in

Central Kolkata comprising BBD Bagh, Esplanade, Park Street, Chandni

Chowk, Dalhousie Square, Sudder Street and Burra Bazaar. The second purpose was to increase supply of housing stock by creating new residential units to cater to housing shortage in other regions.

 2015 - On 18 June 2015 Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) was constituted by merging the existing municipal areas of Bidhannagar

Municipality and Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality and the panchayat area of

Mahishbathan II Gram Panchayat (Bidhannagar, 2018). In addition, a portion of the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), located in the south-east, falls under the administrative boundary of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation.