"IMAGINE: going to the office,
wading through streets piled with
muck, wearing sloshboots
boats ... faces in the crowd hidden
behind gas masks ... long queues
in front of fair price shops
rationing out weekly portions of
fresh water (5 litres per head),
vegetables and fishImutton. The
last homes for greenery are the
peopWs drawing rooms, while outside their homes
It pilts up above the balconies ... and beggars - former
&& and farmers - seeking alms at their doors," says a
knitiost of the Nagarik Manch, Calcutta.
It seems nightmarish, but most environmentalists believe
&is is not too far-fetched a vision. At the root ofthe problem
ks the rampant destruction ofthe wetlands. The Calcutta
wds haw attained prime real estate status today, highly
ed by developers. The total wetland cover in the city is
It 300 bectares, (ha), that is, nearly 6 per cent of the city
TM prke an acre of land here will fetch is unimaginable.
dw goverment too feels that the best places to use up for
qweding megapolis are these apparently useless, smelly,
marshy expanses.
If the fact remains that the wetlands cater to the
of 139 wards of what is the present-day
a Municipal Area, serving more than 90 lakh
Interestingly, this singular fact has been
died since the days of the British, and the present
ow is merely towing this line.
Hamilton, a British visitor to 19th century
a6 observed, "It is not practicable to bring into
r these salt marshy lands, for the most part
wed by the flood..." Hamilton inadvertently
d out one of the true values of the wetlands:
flood cushioning.
The East Calcutta wetlands are remnants of the
serum distributaries of the river Ganga. When
rim changed course in the 15th century, these
one ismictive, low-lying areas, filled only by tidal
an from the Bay of Bengal. Eventually, landless
am settled here by the zamindars set up embankment
ML lesdi to the formation of the wetlands, permanently
lot about half-a-metre of water. Later, in the 19th century
IrWWb6 attempting to improve Calcutta's drainage, chanelised
led the sewage into the Vidyadhari river, which lay east of
gedwads. By 1928, siltation completely filled it up and the
w w*s officially declared dead, Over the years, the Salt
m6 pied with sewage, changed from being salt-water fisheries to
sewage-fed-ones.
In the post-Independence period, the West Bengal government,
in consultation with a firm from the Netherlands,
accepted one reclamation proposal in 1953- The plan was to
expand the city by about 1,012 ha in part of the reclaimed area
and develop agriculture, horticulture, and fisheries on the rest.
The Salt Lake Reclamation and Development Board was
formed in 1960 under the irrigation and waterways depart-
ment of the government of West Bengal for the reclamation of
the north-western part of the Salt Lakes. That was the begin-
ning of the present crisis.
The threat to the wetlands has a large political component.
In the early '80s, the ruling Left Front (LF) amended the state
laws on rural land ceiling, to bring waterbodies under their
purview. The second phase of rural reforms, spearheaded by
the Communist Party of India-Marxist (cpi-m), started with
the formation of fisherfolk's cooperatives. But political rot
soon set in, and the local party bosses of the Cpi-m started
using these organisations to make a career out of reforms.
The other projects slated for the wetlands include another
trade fair (47.6 ha), to be developed by the Calcutta
Improvement Trust; a major governmental housing project (a
total of338 ha); an electronics park, and a new zoological gar-
den spread over 121.5 ha. A science city and a private hospital
financed by a well-known investment agency have already
come up.
Quoting official statistics and environmental reports,
Premotosh Ghosh, secretary, South 24 Parganas Fish
Producers' Association, says that any further reclamation of
the wetlands would seriously affect the biosphere. He claims
that the oxygen level in the city's ambient air has drastically
gone down in just about 30 years, as a result of reduced plankton content in the wetlands.
Tapan Banerjee, director, Institute of Local Government
and Urban Studies of the West Bengal government says, "The
average wind flow across the city has already reduced by I
kni/h since the eastern fringe was developed." A K Ghosh,
director, Zoological Survey of India, complains, "By a very
gross estimate we can say that we have lost up to 80 per cent of
faunal biodiversity."
Geologists are worried about the loss of natural drainage
in the city. "Developers have raised the level of land in the
region, and today the topography has become
somewhat saucer-shaped, which can adversely
affect the drainage," says P K Shome, former
head of the department, civil engineering,
Jadavpur University. As a result, areas which
never suffered monsoon waterlogging are regularly flooded for long periods.
There is also being created an undue pressure on the aquifers, and these are not getting
recharged either. Ananda Deb Mukherjee, prof,essor of geology in the Jadavpur University, says
that between the'60s and'80s, water levels in the
aquifers have reduced by 20 feet. Mukherjee
fws that at this rate, the threat of subsidence is
being magnified.
Calcutta has no mechanical sewage treatment plant. Part
of its sewage is treated in the sewage-fed fisheries which is a
cost effective and durable alternative. That also is being
adversely affected. Dhrubajyoti Ghosh of Calcutta
Metropolitan Water and Sanitation Authority says, "This is
the best and most viable 'resource recovery' method for a
developing country like India. The solid and liquid wastes of
the city are treated at no cost to the government, due to the
wetlands and the adjoining Dhapa dump".
Public outcry has been massive. organisations
Nagarik Manch and Public United for Better L=9V1
Calcutta (PUBLIC) launched extensive campaigns. In 1992. IN
Calcutta High Court ordered an injunction on the propolM
World Trade Centre, after PUBLIC took DCL to Court.
City developers, however, insist that they shouldle
allowed to develop the area, saying they are ready to
an equivalent area. They are even ready to dig deeper
than the ones they would be filling up. But, says "
Kakker of PUBLIC, "These people do not put any value on
rich biodiversity that we would lose out on if the
lost, not to mention the environmental, importance."
An official of the state government am
many NGos allege covert government support
"Overnight, land records are changed
wetland areas are declared as agricultural land or
wastelands." This makes it possible for deve"
ers to buy land legally, which cannot be done a
the case of wetlands.
Three major experiments have bois
successfully carried out in the Calcutta weda-mdh
The Mudialy Fisherfolk's Cooperative Socbety
at Mudialy, located near the Calcutta "
have, through a series of sedimentation
purified water containing toxic industril
effluents for fish cultivation and agricultural use.. 'at
East Calcutta wetlands have already been declared
of national importance, because they are a marvel
resource recovery and recycling. And the Integrated
Wetlands System (iws), has been demonstrated to
replicable in "any poor country with ample sunshine".
these are based on harnessing traditional folk knowledge
technology. It now remains to be seen whether the people
or the mafiosi.
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