Salt Lake City

16 Apr 1962 ~ Foundation Stone laid by then CM Dr. BC Roy. Seen with Ajoy Mukherjee and others~ (Photo : Coutesy- AnandaBazar Ptrika dated 12 Feb 11)

Salt Lake City Township of Kolkata (also known as Bidhan Nagar) completed 50 years on Monday, 16 April 2012 and celebrating its Golden Jubilee year. Exactly 50 years ago, on April 16, the late Chief Minister of West Bengal Bidhan Chandra Roy had laid the foundation stone of the township.

Salt Lake Township of Kolkata (also known as Bidhan Nagar ) has completed 50 years on Monday, 16 April 2012 and celebrating its Golden Jubilee year. Exactly 50 years ago, on April 16, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal Bidhan Chandra Roy had laid the foundation stone of the township.

Residents of Salt Lake area might not be knowing its tales about how it took shape as a most modern township of Kolkata. The area of Salt Lake was mostly wet land with water bodies, fisheries ( “Bheris”) and the land belonged to the Jamindars (land lords) of Beliaghata (Naskar Family). Then CM Bidhan Chandra Roy asked the land from them for building up a modern township for the middle class people. They agreed and donated the land to him at a cost of 1 Rupee. The descendents of the Jamindars are still lives in Beleghata, adjacent  to Salt Lake City. Many of us, the residents of Salt Lake, do not know about their greatness and their contribution for building this township.

On the other hand, Jamindar, Krishna Chandra Dutta (Kookme fame) denied to hand over their land for this project. Their land, on the other side of the present Salt Lake is known as “Duttabad” (Land of Dutta’s) which is a slum area of Salt Lake now. This area is mostly under encroachment and is a headache for the authorities for any development. The present East West Metro  project is held up for these Duttabad people.Had this Landlord given their land to the project “Salt Lake City”, the city would have been more beautiful. Now it is a black spot of the planned city.

From one house at AA block, the township has grown over the last 50 years, with the present population more than 2 lakh.

Click this link for the well planned Layout Map of the township. In this map, you can see how beautifully planned the individual blocks.

 

Salt Lake City, Kolkata, India is in focus now being the one of the host cities in India for the FIFA U-17 WORLD CUP -2017. Most beautiful & huge Salt Lake stadium “Vivek YuvaBharati Krirangan” is one of the Venues for the football matches  ofFIFA U-17 WORLD CUP-2017. The Circular object in the pic is the said stadium and the Green shades on the Road are the Metro stations under construction. Right side Lake is the Subhash Sarovar,  prominent lake of the city. (Photo credit : FIFA)