[Reader-list] Bikramgarh Jheel - Additional Information on Posting of Ms Ranu Ghosh

[mrsg at vsnl.com]

Thanks to Ms Ranu Ghosh for introducing Bikramgarh Jheel and South City Project to this Readers’ list. The issue of Bikramgrarh Jheel has been brought to the notice of Kolkata citizens by sustained work of Vasundhara Foundation, a non-funded environmental activists’ and researchers’ group working for the last 5 years. It has organized community movement with local clubs like Udayan Sangha and other Clubs to save the Jheel and due to its initiative the Jheel has been taken over by Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The comparison of two lakes of Kolkata – Dhakuria Lake and Bikramgarh Jheel as described in Ms Ghosh’s posting is based on the article “ A tale of two lakes” by Mohit Ray in the “Statesman”, published in its Sunday Supplement on 19 December 2002. The information about South City, Jay Engineering works and Supreme Court judgments on these issues have been prepared from Mohit Ray’s article “Once there was a Jheel” in another the Statesman Sunday Supplement article on 20 A
ugust 2006. These two articles were later reprinted in edited form in Annual Survey of Environment Kolkata 2003 and Annual Survey of Environment Kolkata 2006 published by Vasundhara Foundation. Vasundhara scientist Kaustuv Basu carried out a detailed ecological study of the waterbody. Two scientific papers have been published on these studies. (A Preliminary Account of the Biodiversity of Bikramgarh Jheel, Bionotes, Vol.6(3), Dec 2004; Restoration of a Dying Waterbody in Densely Populated Region: A Case Study of Bikramgarh Jheel, Proc of 4th National Seminar on Wetland Resources, Dept. of Zoology, S.U.College, Chalakudy, Kerala, February 2005).  

As for the latest development on this issue: Vasundhara’ s letter (01-01-2006) to the Governor, West Bengal with copies to different government organizations and West Bengal Pollution Control Board reopened the issue of encroachment of Bikramgarh Jheel. Vasundhara’s members have spent hours organizing mass protests at Bimkramgarh area several times with the help of local organizations. Due to this WBPCB was forced to reopen the issue, sent new investigation team, formed independent committees and all other activities started. When all the government committees submitted report in support of Vasundhara’s claims but nothing happened, Vasundhara went to the 3-member bench of Appellate Authority of WBPCB on 29 August 2006. However again spending many hours at the court of Appellate Authority, nothing came out. 

Ms Ranu Ghosh and her associate have met Dr. Mohit Ray twice where the copies of all these information and documents were handed over. You can also find more information in the Annual Survey of Environment Kolkata 2003 and Annual Survey of Environment Kolkata 2006 published by Vasundhara Foundation. (This annual survey of Kolkata is being published by Vasundhara from the year 2001) and also from its website www.vasundhara.cjb.net and you may write to Dr. Ray at mrsg at vsnl.com. 

Again thanks to Ms Ranu Ghosh for presenting the issue to new audience.

Mohit Ray 
Vasundhara Foundation




Hi readers
sorry for the delay in 5th posting.

*The changing industrial landscape of Kolkata: documenting the
transformation of a half century old factory, Joy Engineering Works, into
Kolkata's South City Project, "Eastern India's largest mixed use real estate
development"*

* *

*Posting 5:*

* *

*DEATH OF A LAKE*

* *

*South** City** flouts Supreme Court ruling:*

In 1995, in the context of shifting of factory premises from the city of
Delhi, The Supreme Court had given a ruling to protect the city from random
urban development on the vacated land. According to this ruling, if the plot
of land measures more than 5 hectares, 65% of the land has to be given to
the Municipal Corporation for planting trees and developing gardens. Only
35% of the land may be used for construction. Joy Engineering Works has
flouted this ruling and sold off the entire land to the South City project.
The people living in the neigbourhood of the complex have been
deprived of  open
spaces, playgrounds and gardens. Instead, they have got a concrete jungle,
pollution and traffic jam.



*Bikramgarh Jheel: a biosphere supporting rare species:*

Perhaps the biggest loser in the whole game is the Bikramgarh Jheel – a huge
water body, that partly fell inside the premises of the South City Project.
 The Bikramgarh Jheel, in its size, is next only to the two other huge water
bodies that do our city proud – Dhakuria Lake and Subhash Sarovar. But this
water body has never acquired the status or prestige conferred upon its
other two cousins In appearance, it has never matched the idyllic image that
the idea of a 'jheel' conjures up in our mind. Located in the densely
populated Bikramgarh area, on its west side is the cluster of garages, on
one side the tall towers of South City and all around it settlements of
encroachers. The jheel itself is used as a dumping ground for wastes
generated by these varied settlements. Yet, Kaustav Basu, a student of
environment, has spotted 22 species of birds and 32 species of flora around
this jheel – and several species of butterflies and grasshoppers. Among the
species of birds, at least one, according to him, is an endangered species
and among the plants, he has spotted a cluster of shrubs that are rapidly
vanishing from the Kolkata landscape.  In the good old Usha Factory days,
when Joy Engineering Works had not sold off the property to South City,
young boys used to spend their time catching fish in this jheel. They even
remember seeing turtles in this biosphere. People's crass negligence and now
the advancing grip of South City is slowly suffocating the Jheel and
snuffing out the biodiversity it supports.



I have interacted with the people in the dense settlement around the jheel
and among them I have found active members of the major political parties of
West Bengal. Their hutments on the edge of the jheel stand on firm ground,
which in a way proves that the slow process of illegitimate filling of the
water body has been going on for a long time and it serves the vested
interest of so many people to get the jheel filled. Most of these
encroachers have the tacit support of some political party or the other.



*Flashback:*

Years back, when the South City project had just been mooted, Saugata Roy,
an MP from that locality, had said that perhaps a plan to save and
rejuvenate the Bikramgarh Jheel would emerge from the South
Citydevelopment. Today, in the face of recent 'developments', his
comments sound
like a harsh irony. As it so happened, 1.31 acres of the Jheel  fell within
the premises of the Usha Factory,which has been handed over to the South
City builders. Towards the end of December 2005, Vasundhara, an
environmental activist group, spotted that the 1.31 acres of the water body
has been filled by the builders and towers III and IV are being constructed
over this filled space. Vasundhara got their facts together and wrote to the
Governor, the Chief Minister, to the Fishery Deptt. And the Pollution
Control Board. On January 24, 2006, Pollution Control Board summoned
Vasundhara and South City for a hearing. South City declared at the hearing
that they had got permission from the State Board to fill 1.31 acres of the
water body on the condition that they would recreate 1.41 acres of a new
water body.



The PCB constituted a committee headed by Shri P.N Roy. The other members of
the committee were Ex Prof. All India Institute of Hygiene & Public Health,
Prof. Manav Sengupta, Secretary, Faculty of Science & Technology, Univ. Of
Calcutta and Shri Bishwajeet Mukherjee, Sr. Law Officer. This committee
surveyed the premises of the South City project and conducted the necessary
enquiries. In May 2006 they submitted their report to the PCB.



*Excerpts from the report:*

*"After detailed scrutiny of the different information made available before
theCcommittee, it is observed that before issue of Consent to Establish to
Ms. South City project, no inspection was conducted by the State Board…… The
committee surprisingly observed that before issuing permission for
relocation of the water body in M/s South City project, no proper area was
identified by the State Board officials, nor has taken any precautionary
measure. …. Even the Deptt. Of Environment issued a direction upon the3
State Board on 18.7.2005 under memo No: EN/10393/T-II-2/010/2004 to allow
the project proponent to fill up the water body."*

* *

Having made these observations, the Committee has recommended:

*"The entire work of the M/S South City Project should be closed for the
following reasons:*

*i)                    **Construction work of Tower III & IV have encroached
the water body and also have developed by filling up the water body.*

ii)                   *Presently, M/S South City Project has failed to show
any water body area of 1.31 acres for which M/s SCP obtained permission from
the State Board to fill up.*

iii)                 *M/S SCP failed to show any area where 1.41 acres of
land will be developed as water body as per their commitment against the
filling up of the water body of 1.31 acres.*

* *

*2. Tower III & IV should be demolished and the water body of Bikramgarh
Jheel should be restored and Kolkata Municipal Corporation should demarcate
the area – not only the side of M/S SCP, but also other parts should be
restored," * as has been done in the case of other water bodies in Kolkata.*
*

* *

*Present status:*

Construction work of South City project is going on in full swing in blatant
disregard to the recommendations of the Commission. The question is, with
whose blessings are they breaking the law of the land?



According to the eyewitness account of Shambhu Prasad Singh, all the rubble
generated by the day's construction is collected at the edge of the Jheel.
At the dead of night, when the whole city is asleep, the rubble is pushed
into the Jheel by bull dozers. The Jheel is gradually getting filled by the
rubble from the South City Project. To demarcate its territory, South
Cityhas put up a bamboo fencing across the water of the Jheel. Shambhu
asserts
that every time the rubble is dumped into the water, the fencing shifts by a
couple of feet.



I have been recording the progress of South City with my camera from
outside. My visual documentation shows that the land behind the towers III
and IV is now more than what it used to be. The trees that lined this part
of the jheel are now gone. Instead the parking space extends to this spot
and cars can pass smoothly. Very soon, all traces of the water body will be
obliterated by encroachers from all classes – those who live in slums and
those who live in towers.
end of 5th posting
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