Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata
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Bidhannagar (Bengali বিধাননগর), or Salt Lake as it is popularly called, is a planned satellite township developed between 1958 and 1965 to accommodate the burgeoning population of Kolkata. Dr.Bidhan Chandra Roy, then the Chief Minister of West Bengal, was instrumental in formulating the plan to build a satellite residential area on this once swampy stretch of land on the eastern fringe of the city. It is now a hub of economic and social expansion and is famous as the centre for IT in the city. The township is called Bidhannagar in Bengali in the honour of Dr B.C Roy, and also shares its name with its namesake city in the United States on account of the story of its origin.
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[edit] Demographics
As of 2001 India censusGRIndia, Bidhannagar had a population of 167,848. Males constitute 51% of the population and females 49%. Bidhan Nagar has an average literacy rate of 78%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; with male literacy of 81% and female literacy of 74%. 9% of the population is under 6 years of age. Bidhanagar was initially planned to accommodate a population of 450,000.
[edit] Development
The tremendous pressure of accommodating the ever-increasing population of Kolkata contributed to the emergence of the idea of a planned township in the suburbs of the city. As the Hooghly river binds the city in the west, the other way to expand the city was into its eastern fringe. The second Chief Minister of West Bengal Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy came up with the idea of satellite townships. The eastern suburb of Kolkata was full of swampy salt lakes, which on one hand used for pisciculture and on the other the natural drainage way of the city as the natural incline of the city is from west to east. These marshy, shallow salt water lakes were chosen as the site for developing the auxiliary township of Kolkata. Salt Lake City, later was renamed Bidhan Nagar (Bengali: Nagar=City) as a mark of recognition to one of its founders, Dr. Roy.
Bhabanath Sen, a Bengali landlord had taken the present Salt Lake area on lease from 1869 to 1956.In fact, the area was a conglomerate of several salt lakes, a low-lying saucer shaped area, which was lower than the adjoining drainage channels. The only available method of development was to fill these salt lakes to a higher level which would permit gravity drainage through the nearby channels. The Hooghly river, lying in the western fringe of Kolkata needed dredging to maintain the minimum draught for ships. By May 19, 1956, the Government had taken over and then gradually Salt Lake started taking shape. A Yugoslav firm "Invest Import" was entrusted with the reclamation work of the swampy land area. Pipes were laid down from Ghushuri in Howrah to Salt Lake for bringing silt from the bed of Hooghly river to Salt Lake via a number of pumping stations. It took nearly 7 years to fill up the 12.35 km². of land with dredged silt, which was once a very fertile fishing zone. On 16 April 1962 the Salt Lake City was officially born.
The development of the area was divided into "sectors". By 1965, Sector-I was complete and by 1969, Sector-II and Sector-III were ready for occupancy. Then came up the Industrial Sectors IV and V (the location of the IT industries). The 12.35 km². area of the town initially comprised of 12873 plots of land apart from 87 housing estates and blocks. The land area has almost doubled to 33.5 km² now with the incorporation of Duttabad, Sukantanagar, Nayapatti, Dhapa-Manpur and Mahishbathan areas.
[edit] Authority
Bidhannagar was originally under the direct administration of the Irigation and Waterways Department of the Government of West Bengal. In fact, this very department of the Government built Bidhannagar. Then it came under the Public Works (Metropolitan Development) Department. Then again it came under the wings of Metropolitan DevelopmentDepartment. The name of this department was changed to Urban Development Department in 1991. In 1989, a Notified Area Authority was set up to administer the area. Ultimately in 1995 Bidhannagar got its own elected body called Bidhannagar Municipality. All the plots of land in Bidhananagar are leasehold plots and the Urban Development Department (the lessor) directly manages the land matters, while the Municipality is responsible for sanctioning of building plans, providing essential basic services to the citizens, maintenance of the non-arterial (type V and VI) roads and other civic infrastructures of the township.
[edit] Facilities
Being a planned city, Salt Lake offers many facilities usually not available in many of the other older Indian cities. It has clean and well-maintained roads and sanitation, tree-clad boulevards, relatively pollution free environment, its own swimming pool, a large number of schools, the largest sports stadium in India the Yuva Bharati Krirangan,modern shopping malls such as City Centre, INOX multiplex, an amusement park, the Netaji Subhas Sports Institute, a 5-star hotel (Hyatt Regency) and a vast array of Government offices that cater not only to the local town but to the entire city of Calcutta. Originally, Salt Lake had been designed to accommodate the entire administrative apparatus of greater Calcutta, but this idea was dropped early during the planning phase.
Bidhan Nagar is home to several academic, research and professional institutions. The Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, The Variable Energy Cyclotron and the Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences offer research facilities. The Bidhannagar College, The Technical Teacher's Training Institute, the College of Leather Technology, the Administrative Training Institute and Jadavpur University's second campus, the West Bengal University of Technology, the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, the Calcutta campus of IIT Kharagpur, the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information Technology, the National Institute of Fashion Technology,Institute Of Engineering & Management, Indian institute of science education and research, the National Institute of Homeopathy, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata (temporarily) and several management and engineering colleges and other institutions are located in the township. Nicco Park, the first amusement park in eastern India is located in the Sector IV, so also the Nalban Boating Complex. The largest shopping mall of Kolkata, City Centre, has come up near Central Park in 2004 with a built-up area of 4,00,000 sq.ft.
Apart from this, there are 3 police stations, electricity offices, water supply tanks, sewerage water plants etc as civic infrastructure. However, poor street lighting has made petty theft and eve teasing a recurrent problem. Another police station is likely to come up for policing only the sector V- the Information Technology hub.
Salt Lake is also home to Central Park, the largest park in the urban area after the Maidan. Like the town it is situated in, it too has a more famous namesake in USA.
[edit] Further development
It has recently been announced that a new township thrice the size of Salt Lake has been planned further east in Rajarhat under the name of New Town.
