Infrastructure Development and Access to Basic Amenities in Class-I Cities of West Bengal, India

Examination of the city-level infrastructure data from Census databases reveals that improvements in both social and physical infrastructure parameters have occurred in class-I cities of West Bengal but not in economic infrastructure aspects while access to basic amenities and assets has improved only slightly at the household level. However, cities situated in the lowermost infrastructural development categories dominate the urban scene in this state. Furthermore, any discernible improvements in infrastructural facilities during the last decade are totally confined to a few large cities like Kolkata, Howrah, Asansol, Durgapur, Siliguri, Burdwan and Bally. As regards the overall infrastructural development, about 48 per cent of the class-I cities experienced a very low-to-low level improvement in facilities in 2011, implying the dismal status of infrastructure in the smaller class-I cities. The pace in growth of infrastructure facilities in large cities is sluggish compared to many medium and small centres, due to their inability to update the existing infrastructure base up to the required level to meet burgeoning civic demands. Whatever success is gained is disproportionately distributed across the class-I cities of the state, highlighting the tremendous inter-city disparity.