[Reader-list] The Changing Industrial Landscape of Kolkata/ 1st posting/Ranu Ghosh

[ranu ghosh]

*The Changing Industrial Landscape of Kolkata: documenting the
transformation of a half a century old factory, Jay Engineering Works into *
*South** **City** Project, "**Eastern India**'s largest mixed use real
estate development".*

*Posting: 1*

In 1995, I was living in rented accommodation in the locality right behind
the erstwhile Usha Factory on Prince Anwar Shah Road, the site of the
present mammoth real estate development known as South City. The Joint
Engineering factory (a unit of Usha Industries) which occupied most of the
industrial enclave was still partly functional and had not yet been shut
down. The smaller workshops and sheds of ancillary manufacturers and vendors
abutted the factory and I could see a lot of them from the rooftop of my
house.

In 2004 I heard that the Usha factory land had been sold to the consortium
developing the high-rise South City complex. This was completely contrary to
what the then chief minister Jyoti Basu had declared in '94 when he said
that the Usha Factory land would be used for the construction of Apollo
Hospital and that a pharmaceutical factory would also come up there,
providing employment and other benefits to the local population.

I visited the Usha factory location soon and talked with the residents who
lived around it. From them I learned that the employees of Usha factory
still living in their allocated staff quarters were to be evicted very soon.
I also heard that CITU, the CPI(M)'s labour union, had taken over the
negotiations with the factory owners, depriving the affected workers of a
large portion of their deserved compensation. Most of the workers had
quietly accepted whatever handout came their way and had left the quarters.
As soon as they vacated their premises, the housing was dismantled, making
it inhabitable. I saw many of the workers and their families trying to cope
with the drastic degradation in their lifestyles. Lack of employment
opportunities leaded to penury. Even then they were unwilling to take leave
of the area, opting to live in crude hutments and shacks beside the high
wall that now enclosed their former place of residence, without the benefit
of basic amenities. This is when I firmly decided that I would devote my
time, energy and limited personal funds to highlight their plight.

Soon I came back with my video camera to interview the women and migrant
workers most affected by the strong-arm tactics of the developers,
documented my findings, and saw the last vestiges of two generations of a
community on the brink of oblivion. I recorded their stories and disbelief
at their reduced status, how they were trying to adjust to the vicious
change in their lives. Skilled workers were now caretakers of private
property; running tiny shops; plying cycle rickshaws; itinerant vendors; or
simply sitting by the blocked gates despondently watching what is touted as
the one of the tallest constructions in this part of the world, growing
skywards in leaps and bounds every day.


*The Milieu: a resurgent Bengal-* 55,000 registered factories and more are
closed / sick / shut down in West Bengal as of date. Over one million
workers have lost their jobs, or have been displaced with no foreseeable
future. In the last two years the 30-year old, democratically elected
Communist government has a new slogan: "Farming is our base, industry is our
future." In keeping with this thinking, production based industries are
being replaced by the service sectors, mainly catering to big capital and
foreign investments. Apparently the government wants a "revival" which is
happening by acquiring agricultural land to set up large-scale industries
mostly with the support of private investors, both Indian and international.
At the same time, especially in Calcutta, it is observed that operational
factories are being sold off to provide high value real estate
"development". However, what is evident is that this so-called development
is of benefit to only the real estate moguls.  Because of this drastic
change in the industrial mode, we clearly see that in Calcutta a huge army
of unemployed / displaced workers are being created.  Apart from that these
destructive developments in the name of economic and industrial revival have
had adverse effects on the city's social structure and ecology.

*END of Posting 1.*


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