Rampant construction of illegal buildings during the Left Front regime has become a major concern for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) as experts said these structures may collapse any day leading to disaster.

The matter came to head when chief minister Mamata Banerjee during his visit to Elbalpore to pay compensation to a family pointed out that all the illegal buildings in the area had been constructed during the Left Front regime.

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The Central Kolkata, parts of east Kolkata and Jadavpur, Behala and Garden Reach were haven for unauthorised construction during the CPMcontrolled KMC between 1985 and 2000.

During these 15 years, thousands of unauthorised structures came up in vast areas surrounding Alimuddin Street, state headquarters of CPM, Taltala, Rajabazar, Gas Street, Doctor’s Lane, Collin Lane, Topsia, Ekbalpore, Metiabruz, Kidderpore and vast areas surrounding Park Circus and Kareya Road. The illegal buildings which are three to four storey high were set up in slums. These buildings do not have any sanctioned plan and poor quality building materials were used.

The Kolkata district committee of the CPM controlled by leaders like Lakshmi Sen, Mohammad Nizamuddin, Raghunath Kushari, Jaygopal Roy, Jayanta Dasgupta used to put enormous pressure on Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Though KMC mayors Kamal Basu (1985- 1990) and Prasanta Chatterjee (1990-2000) were honest individuals, they did not have power to go against the Kolkata district committee of the party.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, 1984 allowed inclusion of three areas, namely Jadavpur, Behala and Garden Reach known as the added areas in KMC parlance in Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Originally Kolkata had 100 wards and after the inclusion of three areas the number of wards went up to 141 and now it is 144. In Jadavpur, Behala and Garden Reach, hundreds of water bodies were filled up to make room for highrises.

CPM leaders were allegedly behind these construction and they even prevented the KMC from assessing these houses and imposing property tax. Interestingly, there are more assessments in the added areas than main Kolkata.