The EW Metro project is important for Kolkata’s long-term growth and economic development and is expected to reduce some of the major traffic issues that plague the city.
Introduction
This case discusses development and displacement in the context of Kolkata, India. Compared to other Indian cities, Kolkata’s economy has remained stagnant partly because of insufficient transportation infrastructure. The East-West Metro Line would be the second subway line in the city and is meant to alleviate automobile traffic and provide much-needed infrastructure to support the urban economy.
Reason to Be Selected
Understand the frequent tensions between urban development and informality. Consider the common trade-offs in large-scale infrastructure projects between individual and collective good.
Highlights:
Transportation planning, social justice
Informal settlements
Economic development
Poverty reduction
Public transportation
Details
Kolkata, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, is building a new train line, the East-West (EW) Metro line, which will connect the center of the city to the suburbs and newly renovated international airport on the eastern edge of the city. The EW Metro project is important for Kolkata’s long-term growth and economic development and is expected to reduce some of the major traffic issues that plague the city. Several major international donors, who are eager to see the train line completed, are backing the project.
The planning process for the EW Metro project has run into trouble near the eastern suburb of Bidhannagar (popularly called Salt Lake). In order for the train line to be constructed, the city needs to use several acres of government-owned land to build supporting piers,but the land is currently home to an informal settlement housing over 30,000 people. The residents of the settlement are refusing to relocate.
Eventually, they reached an agreement where the hundreds of households in the way of the proposed train line would permanently resettle in government-constructed apartments to be built within 1 kilometer of their current homes. The land conflict and negotiations took a toll on the project, however, extending its construction timeline by at least 3 years and leading to significant cost overruns. The Japanese International Cooperation Agency has continued to support the rail project, though the relationship has been repeatedly strained by cost and time overruns, because of Dattabad and other conflicts along the proposed rail-line.
The E-W rail project is already behind schedule and over budget. The outside funders, who are providing more than 40 percent of the total project budget, are threatening to pull out if the project is delayed any further. If the project loses outside funding, it will very likely need to be canceled, and the millions of dollars already spent will be wasted.
Conclusions
Re-route the rail project to avoid the Dattabad slum. The project will be delayed and have a significantly higher (75 percent) chance of losing external funding and being canceled. If the project does continue, costs will rise substantially because that entire section of the project will need to be redesigned and re-engineered, and land will need to be acquired.
