BIG PLANS IN PIPELINE: The plot along the Hooghly at Uttarpara

The civic body is planning a slew of projects on a long-neglected plot of 600 acres it owns in Uttarpara, Hooghly.

Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, along with his 10 council members, visited the plot on Friday and was so excited about the possibilities of its development that he asked municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay on the spot to prepare a master plan.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) has been in possession of the land, 15 km from BBD Bag and on the banks of the Hooghly across Dakshineswar, since the British period. But the authorities since Independence were unaware of it, till the previous Left Front board, during the tenure of Prasanta Chatterjee as mayor, chanced upon a set of documents in the archive.

Former mayor Subrata Mukherjee had once thought about setting up an entertainment park, through a joint venture with private parties, on the plot. The proposal never took off.

Mayor Bhattacharya?s list of priorities includes old-age homes for the parents of NRIs, an engineering college, a vocational training centre, homes for the middle class, a swimming pool and an entertainment centre. The civic body plans to take them up in joint ventures with private parties.

The master plan will divide the plot into sectors and a particular type of development activity will be allowed in each,? the mayor said.

?While preparing the master plan, we must keep in mind that a township is coming up just six km from Uttarpara, in Dankuni. As Uttarpara does not have a source of surface water, our plot can be an ideal location for setting up a water treatment plant for the township,? commissioner Bandyopadhyay pointed out.

The plot, 0.25 km wide between the Hooghly on the east and GT Road on the west, is under threat, as indiscriminate digging by a brick-kiln owner has severely eroded the river embankments.

?If such practice is not stopped and the ditches are not filled up immediately, GT Road may cave in at places,? the commissioner warned.

Considering all aspects of the 600 acres and their surrounding areas, the master plan will aim at:

Saving land from encroachers

Preventing erosion of the Hooghly

Stopping illegal digging by brick kilns

Putting fallow land to productive use.

The CMC plot is also being eyed by the Uttarpara-Kotrung municipality, which wants to set up an entertainment park. Municipality chairman Pinaki Dhamali will approach mayor Bhattacharya for land. ?We have funds and are even willing to set it up in a joint venture with the CMC,? he said. ?There are 17 brick kilns on the CMC land here and their lease terms had lapsed long ago. The area of one kiln will be enough for the park,? pointed out Dhamali.

The kilns, he added, were set up by British engineers for a steady supply of bricks for their projects in the city and other places.