Bird’s eye view of Salt Lake City. A Telegraph picture

The Salt Lake civic body functions without a master plan, making it difficult for the authorities to detect any illegal construction.

Labony resident S. Chakrabarty came to know of the “startling fact” after he demanded a master plan from the municipality to verify whether some of the buildings in EC block were illegal.

“I was shocked to know that what is often touted as a planned township does not have a master plan,” said Chakrabarty.

Tapas Chowdhury, the sub-divisional officer of Bidhannagar, admitted that the township does not have a master plan. “The municipality also does not possess a land-use map. There is one map indicating the land-use pattern of Salt Lake with the urban development department, but the civic body never got a copy of it,” he added.

Before Bidhannagar Municipality came into being in 1995, the civic affairs of the 33-sq-km area of the township were looked after by the Bidhannagar Notified Area Authority. “If a master plan had existed before the formation of the municipality, the authority did not pass it on,” said a senior municipal official.

“Not a single board of the municipality ever tried to prepare the plan, which would have helped the authorities decide on any modification to the building rules,” the official added.

Apart from the civic building department, the absence of a master plan is being felt by the officials in the drainage and sewerage section.

“We have a basic sketch of sewerage-drainage network in each block. So, taking a block-wise decision is not a problem. But we are handicapped and forced to work on approximation when we plan any upgrade for the entire municipal area,” said an official in the drainage department.

“The flaws in our planning are evident in the frequent waterlogging in the township,” pointed out the official.