Kolkata: The West Bengal State Urban Development and Municipal Administration today demarcated the execution responsibilities of municipal affairs between two of its nodal agencies.
As per the new structure, the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) has been entrusted to handle and execute all municipal-related projects involving 40 corporations and municipalities across the states.
Other than Kolkata and Salt Lake, KMDA’s purview will extend to all municipalities located in Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts.
On the other hand, the Municipal Engineering Directorate (MED) will be the other agency that will be responsible for urban projects in 88 municipalities. These municipalities are located across Alipurduar, Bankura, Birbhum, Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Murshidabad, Malda, as well as, Purba and Paschim Bardhaman.
There has been confusion created recently between the two bodies as to the execution mandate for urban projects around drinking water supply, sanitation and faecal sludge treatment plants among others. This clear demarcation will hopefully put an end to this confusion and overlap of project execution.
Normally the State Urban Development Department has under its purview the two agencies KMDA and MED to execute all urban and municipal affairs in the state. These might belong to the Kolkata Metropolitan Area and those beyond that.
While KMDA’s mandate has been more or less clear, the MED is entrusted to provide technical assistance on many of these projects. MED is also entrusted to support projects under AMRUT, Green City Mission and NULM.
This has led to confusion and often overlap between the two agencies often causing delays and duplication across many projects. With the clear demarcation guidelines drawn, all this hopefully will soon become a thing of the past
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