Land that was once part of the East Kolkata Wetlands now bears little resemblance to it — a row of warehouses, no water and only sparse traces of agriculture.
The plot where two warehouses near Anandapur were gutted falls within the protected East Kolkata Wetlands, a senior state government official confirmed on Wednesday.
The land, located in Karimpur mouza, is recorded as shali, or agricultural land, in state government records. “The land records do not show permission to convert the plot for any use other than agriculture. As it is a notified wetlands area, permission could not have been granted in any case,” the official said.
Residents said the structures are relatively recent. A resident of Nazirabad alleged that the warehouses had come up over the past decade. On Tuesday, however, municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim said the land in the area had been filled up in the mid-2000s, during the Left Front regime.
“We had water bodies around this place 10 to 12 years ago,” said a man who visited the site of the devastation, speaking to Metro.
Nazirabad, though only a 10-minute drive from the Ruby crossing, is a panchayat area. A visit to the locality revealed extensive construction activity. Rows of shops line the main road in Nazirabad, many built on stilts over a canal. Construction debris lies dumped across multiple plots where water is still visible in patches. Several water bodies appear to be shrinking, with the presence of water hyacinth in some drying plots suggesting that they were once larger wetlands.
Garages and workshops of several automobile companies line both sides of the main road. Houses, schools, banquet halls, picnic spots and retail outlets dot the stretch.
The East Kolkata Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Act, 2006, restricts such development. It states that the wetlands management authority cannot “grant sanction for change of character or mode of use of a land unless the change is for improvement or upkeep of the local environment and its surroundings”.
The road from which one turns off to reach the gutted godowns runs towards Ruby on one side and Sonarpur on the other. On the Sonarpur-bound stretch stands the office of the Kheyadaha II gram panchayat.
Mita Naskar, the pradhan of the gram panchayat, reiterated that the godowns were located within a notified Wetlands area. “The question of any permission from the gram panchayat does not arise. I have been the pradhan since 2013, and no permission was granted during this period,” she said.
The transformation of the landscape becomes more apparent while travelling from Nazirabad to the panchayat office. Resorts with loud music and decorated interiors for guests are common. A large tract of land was seen being excavated, possibly for conversion into a fishery, with an earthmover at work. Under-construction buildings — some freshly plastered, some with brickwork underway and others with only scaffolding — appear at regular intervals.
Naskar said the Wetlands Act often places severe restrictions on residents who have lived in the area for decades. “People here have lived for generations, but the Act does not allow them to use the land the way they want. They cannot even build their homes,” she said.
She acknowledged, however, that the gutted godowns were not residential structures but commercial ones. “But these structures feed so many people,” she added.