New Town, Kolkata


New Town is a fast-growing planned satellite city of Kolkata. It comes under North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is close to Kolkata and covered by New Town Kolkata Development Authority. HIDCO plans developing infrastructure like - roads, drains, sewerage line, water supply lines, major beautification works etc and executes constructions like - buildings, projects, parks, museum, subways, overbridges etc in New Town. This new information technology and residential hub is being developed on the north-eastern fringes of Kolkata. The area mainly consisted of huge acres of cultivable lands and water bodies, which have been acquired and developed in a planned manner. The process of investing in residential and industrial facilities and infrastructural development of the area has mainly started under the leadership of the then Chief Minister of West Bengal Jyoti Basu in the late 1990s. The master plan envisions a township which is at least three times bigger than the neighbouring planned Salt Lake City. New Town has been also declared as a Solar City by the previous UPA government at the Centre and now the initiatives are being taken to declare this city as Smart Green City, a dream project of Narendra Modi with the help of Government of West Bengal according to a proposal submitted by Mamata Banerjee. New Town was enabled with 10.5 km of Wi-Fi Zone along the Major Arterial Road from Haldiram, near Dumdum/Kolkata Airport to Salt Lake Sector V, which also make it India's first Wi-Fi road connectivity. The stretch has already been declared as a green corridor.

Geography

New Town is located at. The township is located in the Bidhannagar subdivision of North 24 Parganas district. It is part of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area.

Economy

New Town being three times the size of Salt Lake has emerged as the second IT hub of Kolkata. Already several Information Technology majors are operational, while others like TCS, Wipro and Infosys have been allotted space along with Cognizant. Many luxurious hotels like Lemon Tree Premier Hotel, Novotel, Swissotel, Westin etc. have also come up in the area.

Demographics

As of April 2018, the residential population of New Town is estimated to be more than 1 million with 0.5 million additional floating population.

Civic administration

The New Town Kolkata Development Authority has been constituted under The New Town Kolkata Development Authority Act, 2007 for rendering various civic services and amenities within New Town, Kolkata and it has come into effect since November, 2008. It is a transitional arrangement in the way of creation of an Urban Local Body. The administration is headed by a chairman, exercising authority over a member secretary and Chief executive officer, who in turn oversee various specific committees, set up to implement various duties.

Utility services

Newtown's current administrator is Koushik Sarkar. As of 2015, New Town gets 200 lpcd of treated water every day with potable water that is sourced from the Hooghly River. Water treatment plants with computerised monitoring and control system are in place. 100% of the garbage is collected by sanitary workers through door to door collection. As of 2015, more than 70% of the solid waste management vehicles and street sweeping vehicles have been fitted with GPS devices for effective monitoring. All the garbage is compacted at compacting stations before disposing of it in dumping grounds.
Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation plans and executes development projects in New Town, Kolkata. The erstwhile planning area of HIDCO is divided into four Action Areas ie. Action Area - I, Action Area – II, Action Area - III and Action Area - IV. The Central Business District is located between Action Area - I & II. As multinational IT companies are coming in New Town, HIDCO is developing the city as per their master plan. HIDCO has also decided to install the geographic information system to integrate the database on the number of house owners, property tax, mutation, building construction etc in New Town.
Electricity is supplied and managed by New Town Electric Supply Company Limited. Fire services are handled by the West Bengal Fire Service, a state agency. The Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate looks after the law and order in the city.
State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, as well as private enterprises, among them Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Jio, Tata DoCoMo are the leading telephone and cell phone service providers in the city. Kolkata being the first city in India to have cell phone and 4G connectivity, the GSM and CDMA cellular coverage is extensive in New Town.

Transport

The main mode of transportation, like other parts of Kolkata includes air conditioned, non-AC government and private buses, taxi and other popular Indian transports like auto rickshaw and e-rickshaws. As of 2015, around 300 buses on 25 different bus routes, either passes through or originates from New Town. As of November 2016, the New Garia – Dumdum/Kolkata Airport Line of the Kolkata Metro, which passes through New Town, is under-construction with cost inflation and delays

Education

Some of the educational and training institutes that are setting up their campuses in New Town:
For the children, to study up to the 12th standard, New Town also houses many schools: