come from the South. The destination of most of these passengers is the central core area and it would be reasonable to assume that all of these passengers would be directly benefited by the Circular Railway.

Passengers from the West similarly consist predominantly of commuters who detrain at Howrah Station. It would be reasonable to assume that 80 per cent of these passengers would be benefited by the Circular Railway.

Transit passengers from North and South consist predominantly of people residing in the city and its suburbs very close to the city. The proposed Circular Railway would run along the fringe at the city and will provide a comfortable rapit transitfacility. People from the fringe area and also from areas within reasonable walking distance would be diverted to this. It would be reasonable to

assume that in the North Section people residing north of Grey Street would be directed to the Circular Railway at Shyam Bazar or Bagh Bazar station and in the South Section people residing South of Rash Behari Avenue and East of Gariahata Road will be diverted to Circular Railway. The desireline chart of the transit passengers show that such passengers would consist of at least 60 per cent of the total North-South movement.

The Circular Railway, therefore, in the completed stage, would serve a total volume of 5,33,261 people in the daily movement from their place of living to the central business area.

This is existing situation. The condition will intensify much more. in the next 20 years.

Economic Consideration

According to the estimate given by the Railway Board, the construction of the Circular Railway will require Rs. 50 crores. The estimate, however is very approximate. The Railway Officials attached to the scheme is now after giving an estimate on a realistic basis.

Even at this stage, it may be interesting to work out some approximate figures of the probable earnings from the Circular Railway. The total 6,33,261 people benefited directly

It

by the Circular Railway would be able to come from their place of living directly to the place of work. Now in addition to the Railway tickets, they have to spend at least 10 P for one trip to go the core area. would, therefore, be reasonable to assume that of the Circular Railway is built, it would not be unfair if an additional amount of 10 p is charged for each trip, that is for each passenger an average of 20 p per day may be considered as a reasonale amount of income for the present.

Now, considering 250 week days per year and neglecting movement performed on holiday, the total volume of passenger per year is about 13 crores. This is the situation that exists now. The growth of Railway passengers indicates that the volume of passengers has increased in the last 10 years by more than 100 per cent. It would, therethe volume of passengers on the proposed fore, be very conservative if we assume that Circular Railway will increase by about 3 per cent per year. And accordingly the total additional earning per year at the rate of 20 p per two trips, is estimated as Rs. 4.19 crores in 1983 and there will be a total return of Rs. 63.33 crores from 3966 to 1984. This is, however, very much on the conservative side. The total growth of traffic will be much more than what is assumed in the estimate.

One of the challenging problems in most large cities of the world today is the management of rush hour traffic. The popula tion of most cities is growing so fast that even in most well-planned cities road surfaces are proving to be inadequate for carrying the concentrated traffic in the morning peak hours when the shops and offices generally open and again in the evening peak hours when the workers go home.

Most large cities have provided underground or overhead railway system to supplement road transport, but still have not succeeded in satisfying the public demand for comfortable travel during the rush hours. In Calcutta this problem is particularly acute as its population has been growing at a tremendous rate during the last decades and there has been no improvement worth the name in the road system or mass transportation arrangements.

The Calcutta Improvement Trust has no doubt done some useful work during the last 50 years. It has opened up a good portion of southern Calcutta beyond Bhowanipur and Kalighat.

It has also built two important thoroughfares in the heart of Calcutta, namely, Chittaranjan Avenue and Vivekananda Avenue. But the Improvement Trust has to work within the narrow limits set by its modest budgetary resources and the restricted powers given to it by the Legislature which expected the Trust to do some "patch work" improvement only, more or less on a self-financing basis.

Hence the Trust has not been able to give a modern road system to the city. Most of Calcutta's roads were never meant to carry anything more than palanquins and horsecarts and it is no wonder that they are miserably inadequate for the present-day needs. Urbanisation has been very rapid around Calcutta ever since Independence. A large number of ill-planned colonies-mostly

inhabited by East Bengal refugees-have grown up in the suburbs.

New Settlements

There have also been quite a few decent new settlements either because of the activities of Calcutta Improvement Trust or of groups of enterprising persons. The inhabitants of these areas number quite a few lakhs and the large majority of them come to the busier parts of Calcutla for their livelihood, adding to the pressure on the roads.

The city traffic is thus becoming exceedingly heavy during the rush hours. Most of Calcutta's roads carry such heavy traffic during these periods that it is hardly possible to give any relief by augmenting the number of buses and trams. The problem is getting all the more complicated because of the heavy concentration of commuter traffic at Howrah and Sealdah Stations. At the peak hour, the number of daily passengers at Howrah and Sealdah was found to be 50,000 in 1963. As most of the commutators come to Dalhousie Square-Burrabazar: area, the volume of traffic becomes in the Central City almost unmanageable. It is now too late to think of solving the mass transportation problem by re-planning_the city widening most of its major roads. The land values have soared so high and the area is so heavily built up that even by spending hundreds of crores of rupees, no substantial improvement is possible. solution must therefore be in the provision of other means of mass transportation as has been done in the other metropolitan cities of the world. For intra-city traffic,. there will have to be a grade separated system of rapid transit. For Calcutta, there are three possible alternatives, which have to be examined carefully. The least expensive perhaps will be a overhead railway following the alignment of some of the major northsouth and east-west roads. Such

The

a

system has many obvious disadvantages also, which will have to be carefully weig