Residents of parts of New Town, dotted with housing complexes, hotels and commercial buildings, have started a signature campaign after coming to know that the areas have been made part of a gram panchayat.
The campaign aims to get revoked a notification that says eight mouzas of Mohisgote, which include pockets in Action Area IA, IB, IC, ID, IIB, IIE and III in New Town, will be included in the “Jyangra Hatiara II gram panchayat area”.
The notification was issued by the block development officer of Rajarhat Development Block as part of a delimitation exercise in 2017.
The bid to thrust a rural administration on an urban area has come to light in the wake of the ensuing panchayat elections, likely in March.
The places that have been included in the panchayat areas have at least two star hotels. City hotspot Eco Park, that is run and maintained by Hidco, too, has been brought under the Jyangra Hatiara II gram panchayat, an official of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) said.
Till 8pm on Friday, more than 3,700 signatures had been collected during a door-to-door campaign by resident volunteers from the New Town Forum and News (NTFN), a residents’ body in New Town.
An NTFN member said more than 5,000 copies of the petition, addressed to multiple authorities, have been dispatched to standalone housing cooperative societies and housing complexes in all three action areas of New Town.
“It is like comparing apples and oranges. We have been paying taxes to the NKDA. The civic services provided by the NKDA are worth more that the entire budget of a gram panchayat,” said Samaresh Das, one of the campaigners.
“We don’t want New Town, which is one of the newest satellite cities of Kolkata, to be administered by gram panchayat members. They, too, will find themselves in a difficult situation taking up development work in rural areas and providing civic services in New Town.”
The pockets that are part of the Jyangra Hatiara II gram panchayat, according to the notification, have always been administered by the NKDA, residents and government officials said.
The agency is in charge of property tax collection, issuing of birth and death certificates and property mutation in all three action areas of the township. It is also responsible for providing civic services, including building and maintaining roads, upkeep of street lights, garbage collection and maintenance of parks and boulevards across the township.
The NKDA functions as an urban local body, much like the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
“All these areas (the ones that the notification says are part of the Jyangra Hatiara II gram panchayat) are within the ambit of the agency. Schedule I of the New Town Kolkata Development Act clearly states the boundaries of the areas where the NKDA is empowered to act as an urban local body,” said a senior NKDA official.
A senior official in the North 24-Parganas district administration said: “There is a possibility the New Town authorities will plead for an amendment to the notification (to ensure that the pockets are not merged with the panchayat). We will forward the request to the panchayat and rural development department for their consideration.”
