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Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) Are Working on How to Make the City Beautiful

By Mrs Gupta, Section Development
Posted on Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 11:58:08 PM EST

Ten experts of the Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) are working on how to make the city beautiful.

They are planning an elaborate surgery, which is being technically called conservative surgery of the city fabric. When the plan is ready, the city will look like its just stepped out of a salon—landscaped greens, well-lit broad roads, modern street furniture and lack of traffic jams are some of the changes that will strike you. Kolkata Municipal Corporation which has asked Besu to prepare the plan on its behalf.

Besu is trying to lay out a development plan for the city for the next five years, keeping in mind its growth prospect in the next 25 years. In laying out the plan, care is being taken to address every aspect of the city infrastructure, identify lacunae and then suggest changes taking into consideration the pressure of population growth that the new system will have
to withstand for the next 25 years.

KMC will pay Besu from the funds it has received from the Department for International Development (DFID). The university has promised to deliver the plan to KMC within six months, and the latter is expected to start acting on the plan immediately thereafter.

“We are not only looking into infrastructural details like water supply, storm water drainage, solid waste management, sewerage, roads, pavements, streetlighting and street furniture, but also into
how slums can be improved and how urban renewal can happen. What is unique in the design is that the plan is being laid out in such a way that changes and modifications to the existing fabric of the city are being brought about without completely uprooting the existing facade of the city. This is what we call conservative surgery,” said Souvanik Roy, faculty member of the department of architecture and town planning, who is heading the project. Faculty members from the department of civil engineering and school of ecology, infrastructure and human settlement management are also involved in the project.

Explaining how the plan is being laid down, Roy said, “take the case of roads for example. We are first mapping the existing facilities that we have as against the projected rise in vehicular traffic for the next 25 years. Naturally the question of widening comes in. But that is not all, we will also have to identify roads that need strengthening, considering the frequency of heavy vehicles plying on such roads,” Roy added.

Source- Times Of India, Dated, December-22,2006

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