WHO ARE WE?

"You may think that you are living in an "urban desert", but, well hey!!! we are on the same page here. You're not alone. We are just your next-door neighbours. You'll meet us on your way home or your way to your workplace. And also during major occasions at the "oasis" in the form of different occassions"

Quoting almost all the residents of Newtown Action Area 1B, we can proudly say that we have every possible hi-tech amenities that we can have. Our block is a balanced combination of Residential, social and official units. The residents of 1B who had completed their houses started to shift after July, 2010. But for this vast area the number of residents was very less, not more than 15-20 families. Nobody knew each other. They only knew that the white building will be occupied soon, in the red building three families may shift. A new township. Though HIDCO made some basic infrastructure but still lots of problems in the day to day life which will be looked after by N.K.D.A. But who will go to NKDA every day to solve these problems? Even the residents did not know each other. In each individual building the problems were different. People from different areas arrived nobody knew each other. Then all the residents decided to form an association to solve the problems of the area and also to make a social bonding.

In 2010, they first celebrated the Sarbojanin Durga Puja, Bengalis greatest festival, starting of social bonding. At the same time the association started to solve the problems of the resident, like the street lights in the individual lanes, planting of the trees, cleaning of the day to day garbage with the help of NKDA, problems of mosquito by spreading of oil, security of the area with the help of New town police station etc. The association does the bridging between the residents of 1B and NKDA. The association started to do the social bonding by different festivals like Kali Puja, Lakshmi Puja, Dol Jatra, Poila Baishakh, Rabndra Jayanti, Najrul Sandhya etc. 2013 was the fourth year of Durga Puja celebration. After the Puja a major get together is the Bijaya Sammilani. The associations main motto is "We are not alone we are united." If the residents face any problem the association is with them.

It is known to all concerned that WBHIDCO was set up as a Government Company in April 1999 and following salient point was indicated along with others, in its Brochure at page -1. "The New Town aims at providing sufficient buildable land for construction of dwelling units for all income groups with particular emphasis on the low & middle income segments. It will have High Quality Infrastructure like Wide Roads, Bridges, Large public Open spaces including water bodies, Educational Institutes, Medical Facilities, and Sports & Cultural Complex in addition to Basic Infrastructure like Pure Drinking Water, Power Supply, Daily Markets, Drainages, and Local Transport etc" Unfortunately, it is observed in the beginning, we have faced huge problems during construction of our House Building; especially Electricity & Water Supply. New Town Electric Supply Company Limited, a joint venture company of WBHIDCO deviating from the terms and conditions as mentioned in its Brochure. NTESCL had charged unilaterally and arbitrarily huge amount in the name of Infrastructure Expenditure ( Rs 5000/ per KW) 2nd time ( taking advantage of the Regulation 4 of the Notification No 12 / WBERC dated 28.09.2005 of the West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission ) for installation of New Connection from consumers at New Town , prior to 15th January 2011. However, this was withdrawn after 15th January 2011. Though a lot of land owners who has started their buildings earlier has been incurred loses huge amount.