A stretch of Rajarhat New Town by night and day. Pictures by Bishwarup Dutta

The great Rajarhat dream has turned out to be a nightmare for the residents of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s showpiece township.

The 3,779-hectare Rajarhat New Town — three times the sprawl of Salt Lake — is billed to house 1.5 million residents in the next 10 years.

The implementing agency for the township, the Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco), had touted this as the “best in the country” and promised “state-of-the-art civic infrastructure”.

Twenty-four months after the first of the 1,000-odd residents moved into the housing estates in Action Area-I, infrastructure remains a joke and basic facilities are a distant dream.

Residents like 38-year-old techie Sumi Kanti Sen have been driven to despair. “We are ruing our decision to move to Rajarhat and every day is a struggle,” said Sen.

Metro turns the spotlight on some age-old problems of New Town....

Problem number 1: The Rajarhat roads, potholed and perilous, are dusty by day and dark by night. Half-finished in pockets and inaccessible in parts because of construction material dumped on roads, they are a motorist’s nightmare. Once darkness descends, the car headlight is the sole source of street light.

Residentspeak: “The roads are in a shambles almost everywhere in New Town. There is hardly any streetlighting. My friends mock me saying I live in the middle of nowhere. So much for a dream township,” shrugs Tathagata Rai Chowdhury, 22.

Debashish Sen, an electrical contractor, fled New Town with his family after just three days in their flat. “The roads are either half-done or cratered. Construction material is heaped on the roads. Women can’t even think of stepping out after dark. It’s impossible to live here.”

Swapan Kumar Roy, an engineer, also left Rajarhat in a rush and shifted to a rented flat near Baguiati. “The EMI on the loan for my New Town flat is Rs 11,400. I have to pay another Rs 3,600 for a rented flat on VIP Road. But living in New Town was not an option — my wife fell down several times on the half-constructed road outside our complex.”

Ashish Bhattacharya, a 43-year-old businessman, thinks of moving out of New Town almost every day. “I have lived here for over a year now. The the condition of the roads and the darkness are enough to scare people off. It’s been a nightmare so far.”

Officialspeak: Hidco authorities conceded that they were yet to provide the promised amenities. But they also accused the residents of exaggeration.

“For now, we are just providing basic civic amenities. But the condition of the roads and streetlighting are definitely not as bad as the residents allege. If there are specific complaints we would surely address them,” said a senior Hidco official.

The official went on to explain that the town’s civic infrastructure is being created for its projected 1.5 million population and there would be “massive wastage” if amenities meant for so many residents were provided only for 1,000-odd people now.

“For instance, if we start switching on all the street lights, a lot of electricity would be wasted. We hope the residents bear with us for a few more months,” he said.

What Metro saw: Contrary to Hidco’s claims, most stretches in Action Areas I & II are a mess. In the absence of street lights, New Town is a ghost town.

meghdeep.bhattacharyya@abp.in