PROJECTS : Bustee Improvement Programme

The poor migrant workers in Kolkata had settled in bustees, or slums. The first direct intervention of Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) pertained to making provision of a package of urban infrastructure within slum settlements in Kolkata. The package included:

• A potable water tap connection to individual huts in a slum for every 100 persons;

• A sanitary latrine for each hutment or every 25 persons;

• Surface drainage facility;

• Paving of roads and pathways along with security lighting

• Miscellaneous facilities such as garbage vats, bathing facilities, community halls, etc.

KMDA had earmarked a good deal of investment under each Kolkata Urban Development Programme (CUDP) for bustee improvement. It aimed to cover the entire bustee population of more than two million in three phases. The BIP confined itself to environmental improvement within slum settlements only, coupled with other human development inputs for slum-dwellers.

Apart from infrastructure development, the BIP had infused a sense of community feeling and organization amongst the slum-dwellers. The increasing realisation about their environment and infusion of an aspiration for a better lifestyle, were the two great achievements of the programme. The environmental improvement in slums also led to increasing rentals of dwellings. A sample survey had revealed that between 1974 and 1980 the rentals in improved slums had gone up by 43 % on an average, as against 16 % in cases of unimproved bustees.

The participation of slum-dwellers was to be strengthened further for improved sustainability. Since CUDP - III, Urban Local Bodies largely look after the BIP, with investment allocation from KMDA budget.


Bustee improvement is also carried out under the Minimum Needs Programme (MNP). A slum population of 0.91 lakh has so far been covered by MNP, extending over the old Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) ward nos. 59, 69, 60, 33, 32, 14 and 61. The Kolkata Megacity Programme (KMP) has a budget of about Rs 343 lakh to cover the slum-dwellers in the KMC ward nos. 103, 104, 106, 108, 109, 123 and 128. In addition to the KMP, improvement works in the slums in these eight KMC wards were also taken up under the MNP during 1996-97, at an estimated cost of Rs 165 lakh.