Parking woes, congested junctions, footpath encroachment…residents have a long list of grievances. But at a seminar held at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan last week, experts from various fields came together to propose practical solutions to bypass these and head towards a smart, happy, and sustainable township.

The seminar, titled Future Bidhannagar, was organised by a newly formed citizens’ group called Aamar Bidhannagar, in association with The Telegraph Salt Lake.

Traffic and crime

Aneesh Sarkar, deputy commissioner of police, Bidhannagar zone, acknowledged the growing stress on traffic management. “We are facing challenges as road space is limited, but the number of vehicles is ever-increasing. This leads to congestion and a shortage of parking space,” he said.

“When we ask residents why they park on the street instead of their driveways, they claim that when the houses were built, they had a single, small car. Now, they have multiple vehicles, and the newer models are often too large for the garage,” Sarkar explained.

In Sector V, cars spill out of designated parking spots due to lack of space. Car owners are reluctant to park at the multi-level facility and walk to their destination.

Speaking on traffic management during Durga puja, Sarkar said: “Salt Lake pujas are getting bigger every year and drawing more crowds. We are always prepared for Sreebhumi and FD Block, but last year AK Block saw an unexpected surge in visitors and traffic, and we had to deploy more personnel there.”

Arun Kumar Dasgupta makes a point at a panel discussion as (from left) Jaydip Mukherjee, Amitabha Sengupta, Debashis Sen, Prodip Kumar Deb and Angshuman Choudhury listen

Touching upon cyber crime, Sarkar said the situation was likely to worsen now that AI had entered the field. “Cyber crime will take over traditional crime in the future, so stay alert. If a case is reported in two hours, we have a higher chance of cracking it as opposed to one that is reported after two months. We conduct awareness campaigns, but then, fraudsters follow them too and stay a step ahead,” he said.

He encouraged residents to inform the police before going on vacation so that patrolling can be intensified. “High-quality CCTV cameras have transformed traditional crime-solving. I would like to see more drones and robots manage traffic in future,” he said, urging gated communities to conduct proper background checks on tenants.

Urban planning cues

Town planner Partha Ranjan Das presented a list of issues residents face daily — from a 10-foot-high garbage mound near the CGO complex to overflowing vats at AE Market’s entrances.

“Markets are crying for renovation. Hawkers have taken over footpaths and pedestrians are forced to walk on the roads. Drains need declogging, and places of worship are springing up without permission, and drawing crowds that are a security concern,” said the AE Block resident.

For smoother traffic, he suggested the Islands be done away with, now that signals have been installed. “It would create more road space. As for the appalling state of roads, the road building contractors’ names and numbers may be put up next to them so residents can reach out to them directly,” Das said.

He demonstrated how painfully high our footpaths are by sharing a photo of people comfortably seated on them. “Our footpaths are almost two feet high, nearly the height of chairs! No other city has such poorly designed pavements,” he said.

Cool and colourful

Landscape architect Anuradha Puri Rathore shared simple, sustainable solutions to combat the heat and water-logging. “If we convert all terraces into gardens or simply paint them white, Salt Lake would be two degrees cooler next summer,” she said. “For waterlogging, parks and gardens should be designed as basins to collect runoff, preventing flooding elsewhere and helping water seep underground,” she said.

She also proposed colour-coding Salt Lake’s grid system to help visitors navigate. “First Avenue, from AA to AL Block, could have blue kerbs and lamp posts, for instance. Every street can have its own unique colour identity,” Puri Rathore said.

“People are excited about the Metro reaching Salt Lake, but what about last-mile connectivity? My office is near Wipro, yet none of my colleagues use the Metro as the footpath from the station to the office is not walkable,” she said, proposing e-rickshaws and cycle paths. “In Hyderabad, in fact, they even have cycle tracks with overhead solar panels,” she added, showing images.

Build new roads

Architect Samiran Banik identified the most congested areas and proposed new roads to lighten their load. “Build more bridges over the Kestopur Canal so cars from Salt Lake can get to Kestopur or Baguiati without adding to the jam at Ultadanga,” he said. For the Chingrihata bottleneck, he suggested a flyover from there to around Wipro.

Aneesh Sarkar, deputy commissioner, Bidhannagar

“Unused plots in our blocks should be converted into parking zones. In some blocks, the space in front of community halls is wider,. Allow residents to rent it out for night parking. The revenue can pay for night guards,” suggested the AA Block resident.

He also remarked on the misuse of new four-storeyed buildings: “The ground floors here are mandated to be used for parking, but instead are turned into offices or staff quarters.”

Somavo Gupta, assistant engineer at Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, shared slides prepared for the Central government’s Smart City project that the state government had finally withdrawn from 10 years ago. “Our garbage is no longer allowed to be dumped unprocessed at Mahisbathan due to the National Green Tribunal’s order, and has to be sent to Dhapa, which is far and shared by many municipalities. To ease this burden, we’ve introduced compacting lorries that compress the garbage inside, reducing volume on the go,” he said. “We are trying to make Salt Lake vat-free.”

Gupta added that Sector V’s bheris receive effluents from all over Calcutta. “Despite this, they are among the rare places where fisheries still thrive thanks to natural filtration,” he said.

Pursuit of happiness

The evening concluded with a panel discussion moderated by retired bureaucrat Debashis Sen, who is also the president of Aamar Bidhannagar. “We have heard ideas on making Salt Lake smart, but what about happy? In New Town, we had once got IIT Kharagpur to assess residents’ happiness, and I was shocked when the result was just 6.4 out of 10,” said the former chief of Hidco and New Town Kolkata Development Authority. “But they assured me it had fared much better than Salt Lake and Calcutta.”

Partha Ranjan Das, town planner

Angshuman Choudhury, manager of the National Stock Exchange and a resident of Purbachal Cluster IV, felt happiness would increase if there was more interaction between youth and senior citizens.

Jaydip Mukherjee, director of Heritage Mobility, which is reviving the city’s iconic yellow taxis, shared future plans: “We supply yellow Wagon Rs to app-cab services, especially Yatri Sathi. And we’ll soon launch special services for women and senior citizens that will make their lives better.”

Free encroached gardens

When asked about frequent water-logging, environmental engineer Prodip Kumar Deb explained: “One reason is that the mesh drain covers get clogged with plastic and leaves. If not the Corporation, homeowners should clean them. Another reason is sand. A World Bank-backed study in 2000 revealed that 94 per cent of sediment in Calcutta’s pipelines is sand — washed in from roadside piles during construction.”

Arun Kumar Dasgupta, principal of Bhavan’s Gangabux Kanoria Vidyamandir, recalled that when he moved into Labony in the 1970s, there was just one car in the entire complex. “All of us turned to that car in emergencies. But today, each family owns two cars, so parking problems are inevitable,” he said.

Anuradha Puri Rathore, landscape architect

Amitabha Sengupta, former engineer-in-chief of the Public Works Department and vice-president of Aamar Bidhannagar, suggested expanding road space by reclaiming footpaths encroached by residents’ gardens. “Gardens on either side of a lane mean 12 feet of public space. This can be built into roads. Also, the government issues completion certificates to high-rises without checking if the ground floor is actually used for parking. Cars are instead parked outside and washed on roads, damaging the bitumen-laden roads and causing drains to choke.”

Arunava Das, secretary of Aamar Bidhannagar, said the group would soon present a white paper to the authorities. “We’re forming an expert committee and will submit our recommendations to the mayor and the urban development minister in a fortnight. We’re just a two-month-old group, and this will be our first advocacy initiative.”

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