‘Song of the Road’… A Brief History of the City’s Roads (1700s ~ 1900s): Part One

Pilgrim Road (Chitpur Road) in the 1760s

The construction of roads and their maintenance is an important indicator of urban planning. It also indirectly affects the sanitation in a city. There were practically no roads in the villages that grew into Calcutta, as they were sparsely inhabited. The only pathway was the Pilgrim Road — what is known today as the Chitpur Road — that led to the Kali Temple. The British East India Company as well as the British Government, who took over the administration of the city of Calcutta in 1857, had constructed roads for their ease of movement. Historically, construction of roads in early Calcutta can be traced over three specific periods. They are:

1. Days of the Zamindar (1700~1793);
2. Days of Justices of the Peace (1794~1876); and
3. Municipal Corporation (since 1876)

Roads in Calcutta During Eighteenth Century

Year	Streets	Lanes	By-Lanes
1706	2	0	0
1726	4	8	0
1742	16	46	74
1756	27	52	74
1794	163	520	517

Source: AK Ray: “Short History of Calcutta”; Census Report of India, 1901; Volume VII, Calcutta; ‘Town and Suburbs’; Part I, Calcutta

CR Wilson’s Old Fort William in Bengal reports that the authorities constructed new roads from Fort William to Gobindapur in 1721 for making the place healthier “by the wind’s free passage into the town”. The construction of roads in Calcutta during the days of the Zamindar was primarily carried out by taking contributions from the merchants and local residents. The English Company encouraged voluntary contributions in labour and money for development works of the town. The Company was not authorised by the British Parliament to levy tax on inhabitants of Calcutta for effecting town improvements till 1794. The Circular Road (now called Acharya Prafulla Chandra and Acharya Jagadish Bose Roads) was the result of the voluntary efforts of the citizens of Calcutta.

By 1742, Calcutta had 16 streets and 46 lanes. Few of the roads marked in Orme’s Plan of Calcutta 1742, lying within the Maratha Ditch, had received their present-day names — the ‘Avenue leading to the eastward’ (Bowbazar Street or Bipin Behari Ganguly Street); ‘Road to Dum Dum’, ‘Causeway’ (Manicktollah Road, subsequently renamed as Sookea Street, Baranasi Ghose Street etc); and ‘Road to Kalighat’.

Dalhousie Area (circa 1780)

Captain William Holcombe’s report of 1742, contained references to a ‘Road towards Pennings’ (Chitpur Road up to Baghbazar), and, an ‘Avenue towards the Water Side’ (Nimtala Ghat Street). A number of roads were also repaired by the Zamindars in 1749. The roads included:

1.    “The Road from the Dock Head to the Stable and down to the side of the Park” (Hare Street and road along Dalhousie Square to Vansittart Row);

2.   “The Street from the side and back of Mr Rooper’s House and down to Messrs Noke’s and Lascelles’s House” (Mangoe Lane);

3.   “The Road from Captain Lloyd’s house to the New Bazar, Chandpal Bazar” (Esplanade Row West);

4.   “The Road from New Bridge to Barthola Bazar” (Chitpur Road);

5.    “The Road from the Fort Gate to Mansingh’s Chowki” (Lalbazar~Bowbazar Street);

6.   “The Road from Chowrighee’s Chowki and Gusthulla Bazaar” (Bentinck Street~Chowringhee Road up to Park Street);

7.   “The Street from Margass’s House down to the Powder House” (Council House Street);

8.   “The Street from Purana Gunge to Gobindapur Chowki” (a road that has now merged in the Maidan);

9.   “The Street to the side of the Goal down to Mr Frankland’s Garden” (a road from Tiretta Bazaar to Middleton Row; and

10. “The Street from Omichund’s House to Mir Bahar Chowki” (China Bazaar~ Mir Bahar Ghat Street).

With the recapture of Calcutta from Siraj-ud-Dowlah in 1757, new roads were laid out in the Maidan in the early part of the nineteenth century. Englishmen, who were confined to their settlement at Tank Square, moved out to Chowringhee and the suburbs after 1760. The acquisition of the Zamindari rights of the 24-Parganas in 1757 helped the Company to expand the limits of Calcutta from time to time.

to be continued

On The Drain Front… A Brief History of the City’s Sewerage & Drainage System (1700s ~ 1950s)

In the initial years of the city’s growth, the merchants of the East India Company were not much interested in providing improved civic amenities to the citizens. Some of money the Company collected by imposing taxes, duties and licenses in Calcutta between 1690-1723 by virtue of the zamindari rights they had acquired over the villages of Sutanuti, Kolkata and Govindpur in 1698 was put to develop the settlements’ civic structure.

The civic services rendered by the Zamindar mainly consisted of: water supply, drainage, cleansing of streets and street lighting. The development activities undertaken by the Zamindar included: cutting down the jungles in the town, bridging the watercourses, surveying the lands and other such affairs. The provision of ‘civic amenities’ in the city was brought under the Municipal Administration in 1727.

Calcutta had its natural drainage through the Khal (creek) that originated from the Salt Lakes in the east and joined the Hooghly River just below the Prinsep Ghat, after meandering through Beliaghata, Sealdah, Creek Row, Dharamtollah and Government Place North. The great cyclone of 1737 rendered this creek useless as a watercourse for navigation.

Small surface drains had existed in the city since 1695 when a trench was dug round the Sutanuti factory. A deeper trench was constructed in 1710 to separate the British settlement from the indigenous settlement and keep the former dry and wholesome. The ditch ran from Lalbazaar probably to Baboo Ghat. It was protected with drawbridges and a guardhouse — as it basically served the defense rather than drainage purposes.

In 1742 the Maratha Ditch was constructed initially from Baghbazar to Park Street and then extended to Alipore.  This was mainly for the defense against the Maratha raids but it served also as the grand drainage outlet for the whole city until 1801 when it was filled up.

But the state of affairs changed for the better on June 16, 1803. In a meeting of the “Town Improvement Committee” chaired by Lord Wellesley, the then Governor General of Bengal, a historic initiative was undertaken.

It was at Wellesley’s behest that the “Town Reforms Committee” was formed for improvement of the town. Since the construction of the public drains and watercourses of the Town was extremely defective, he assigned great importance to the improvements of its drainage.

This led to the appointment of a Committee in 1804 to look into the matter. This Improvement Committee, later called the Lottery Committee, undertook extensive development work for Calcutta by constructing roads and filling up filthy tanks in the town and excavating new ones. Beliaghata Canal was the Lottery Committee’s permanent contribution to the city’s drainage system.

It is reported that during the early nineteenth century, the drains in the northern part of the town were unpaved and filthy. Coolies were employed regularly to clean these drains manually that would overflow on to the streets after a light rainfall as these drains had no outlet.

As a result, various proposals came up between 1835-1855 for the construction of a new drainage system in the ‘Town’:

•      The Committee opted for an underground drainage system

•      Captain Prinsep of the Bengal Engineers preferred a surface drainage system to carry off the water with sinks and ash-pits for every house, to be cleansed by manually. He strongly opposed to any scheme of underground drainage in Calcutta

•      Mr Blechynden, proposed to drain the northern portion of the town, in which no large drains had yet been made, either towards the river or to the east by a large underground tunnel running from the Hooghly down Nimtala and Manicktollah streets to the Circular Canal. The tunnel was to be flushed by the admission of the Hooghly water

•     Captain Thomson provided for an elaborate system of large underground drains or sewers that he proposed to flush partly by river water and partly by means of a reservoir to be formed at the western end of the Entally Canal

•      Captain E Forbes proposed to construct a large masonry aqueduct from the river Hooghly at old Chitpur Bridge to the Old Park Street cemetery and link it with the Salt Lakes by a wide-open canal nearly parallel with Entally canal. The canal was to be connected by sluice gates with the river and lake, so that water might be admitted or excluded from both these sources. On either side of the canal masonry sewer or covered drain was to be constructed and linked with a system of subsidiary drains discharging into these two main sewers all the filth and surface drainage of the city

•      William Clark proposed a “water-carriage system” for the town. The original report was submitted to the Municipal Commissioners in 1855, and adopted in 1857 with some modifications and was sanctioned in 1859. Clark’s scheme was a ‘combined sewage-cum drainage system’. It carried off both rainfall and sewage from the Hooghly to the Salt Lakes from where the sewage was to be pumped out. The total town area that was covered under Clark’s Scheme amounted to 4730 acres

Clark’s Scheme comprised of five main sewers with their branches, accessories and outfall works. Three of the main sewers stretched from the Hooghly to the Circular Road along the Nimtala Ghat Street, Colootola Stree and Dharamtollah Street. There were two main intercepting sewers:

•      One from the north, starting from Hooghly at Sova Bazaar Street running eastward to Circular Road and continuing along Upper Circular Road to a level at Dharamtollah junction. It intercepted the three main sewers already mentioned. Between this Circular Road sewer and the Circular Road canal, he provided four storm-water overflows of much larger capacity than the sewers 

•   The other intercepting sewer started from Tolly’s Nullah near Zeerut Bridge, and following Lower Circular Road to Dharamtollah junction. It discharged together with the sewer from the north and the Dharamtollah sewer through a main outfall to Palmer’s Bridge Pumping station in Entally, and thence into the Beliaghata Canal

to be continued