ABSTRACT
The megacity of Kolkata is located on the right bank of the river Hooghly, one of the tributaries of the Ganga River. Kolkata has grown longitudinally because the river Hooghly restricts its growth towards the west while on its east lie miles of wetlands. These wetlands were originally the flood banks of the now-dead river Bidyadhari. For centuries, the wetlands hindered the growth of the city towards the east, but this process started changing from the late 1960s when a portion of the wetlands was reclaimed to create the township of Bidhannagar to cope with the inflow of population from Bangladesh in the post-partition period. Then in the 1980s came the bypass road, a major arterial road that connects the northern part of the city to the south and runs along the wetlands. This road to a great extent paved the way for the city of Kolkata to move towards the east.
A good chunk of the wetlands has been reclaimed in the north and the south to be developed for residential and commercial purposes. The ecological functions performed by these wetlands are that they recycle the entire liquid domestic sewage of the city of Kolkata which is then used for fishing and farming, and also acts as a carbon sink and a flood bank. Solid waste from the city is also dumped here for recycling and conversion into fertilizers. These wetlands are called the peri-urban wetlands of Kolkata because of their location at the fringes of the city. In 2002, 12,500 acres of these wetlands was put under protection under the Ramsar Convention. During 2002–2016, a committee constituted by the National Green Tribunal found, based on satellite imagery, even greater encroachment of the area with residential developments.
Apart from performing the above-mentioned ecological functions, these wetlands are also home to thousands of peri-urban poor who are dependent on them for their livelihoods, like fishing and farming. However, just like other megacities, Kolkata needs to expand to make way for new developments and thus large-scale real estate and commercial development began along the bypass in the recent past at an alarming rate.
This chapter talks about the plight of the women workers of the vegetable farms of Dhapa in the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW). Their existence has been hampered by the growth of real estate along the bypass which is threatening both their livelihoods and their homes. The dwellings of these workers have been demolished to make way for the mega-rich of the city. Driving them away will not only harm these economically weak families but will also hamper the ecological functions of the wetlands which are disappearing at an alarming rate to make space for urban growth in the megacity of Kolkata.
