Municipal Railway & Dhapa Square Mile

Anindita Mazumder

Disposal of waste is not a modern urban problem and Calcutta has struggled with this problem since its inception. Its squalid environment has drawn criticism from its early inhabitants and some of its major roads were actually dumping grounds, later filled in as the city grew, pushing back its boundaries.

Initially, one of the first infrastructures for garbage removal which came up in Calcutta was the two cattle pounds, housing the bullock carts used for the purpose. During the days of Fever Hospital Committee, there were two such pounds, one at Baithakhana and the other at Entally Police Hospital Road. Interestingly to this day, the Gokhana Lane in Baithakhana still bears its association with the cattle pound.

Earlier, private contractors were entrusted with the task of collecting garbage but under Lieutenant Abercrombie, the municipal body took up the responsibility of garbage collection. In 1837, for the first time such a gokhana was constructed for the use of conservancy. Later, as workload increased, a yard was added to the cattle pound to house the conservancy carts and for their repair and maintenance. Much later, fabrication of street name plates and that of house numbers and repair of lamp posts were also carried out in the yard. The police hospital, adjoining the cattle pound suffered from drainage condition and want of proper ventilation due to its presence. By 1901, the city got two more cattle pounds, one at Grey Street and the other at Alipore.

One can get an estimate about the scale of operations from the following statistics. There were 555 bullocks and 404 carts in 1856 but within another five decades, the number rose to 1716 and 1633 respectively and the number of bullock cart drivers rose to 1545. Till 1867, the gokhanas were primarily responsible for collecting garbage and keeping the city clean. However, as the population grew, disposal of garbage collection became a huge headache for the municipal body. Initially, the garbage was burnt in kilns but it was a slow and expensive process and not a sustainable solution. It was then the concept of refuse railway gained precedence.

In the meantime, the Municipal Corporation was plagued with the problem of dumping ground. Initially, it was convenient to find dumping grounds just outside the town. During the days of Old Fort before the Battle of Plassey, the ditch to the east of the fort where the bodies of the Black hole victims were thrown, was used as a dumping ground till it was filled up in 1766. As the boundaries of the town pushed farther, the Mahratta Ditch dug to prevent the raids by bargis became the new dumping ground till 1780. Meanwhile, Strand Bank Road was also filled in. As the city grew and the volume of refuse increased, scavengers were asked to find new convenient dumping grounds outside city limits. In 1859 the Commissioners, in their report complained that these localities were already beyond convenient distances from the town and during rains, carts sank right up to the axle-tree in the muddy grounds.

Meanwhile, in 1865, the government acquired a square mile of land at Dhapa near the Salt Lakes in the east for Rs 93,225 for the Corporation for garbage disposal, the same year that the decision to construct a refuse railway was taken. The swampy Salt Lakes in the Eastern fringe had always received the city’s refuse and sewer because of the natural drainage of the area through the creeks that flowed into it. Starting in 1867, the construction of the railway was taken up in stages till 1911.

The Refuse Railway which came to be known as Municipal Railway was divided into two main sections – the one running from Theatre Road to Bagbazaar Street along Circular Road; and the other extending to the Square Mile, the dumping ground to convey the refuse. The bullock carts used to empty the garbage into railway wagons at certain platforms. Cranes were originally used for lifting the refuse from carts into the wagons but were replaced by the platform system in 1868. Six large loading platforms were constructed along Circular Road. The railway was originally eight miles in length. Its length increased to 12 miles in 1877 and in 1910 – 1911 another three miles of line was constructed. In 1907, the site of one of the platforms was absorbed in the extension of the Campbell Hospital (currently called Nil Ratan Sircar hospital). This closed down two other southern platforms and led to the construction of a new platform with adequate accommodation near Karaya, a little east of Circular Road.

The railway removed on an average over 1,000 tons of refuse daily from the Circular Road platforms to the dumping-ground at Square Mile. The carrying capacity of a wagon was placed at 10 tons, and a single bullock cart carried half a ton of refuse and a double bullock carried two tons of refuse. In 1913-14, around 36,000 wagons were sent to Dhapa.

However, soon the stinking surroundings of Circular Road because of the refuse railway changed public opinion against it. Dr. D.B. Smith, the then Sanitary Commissioner of Bengal castigated the refuse railway in disgust as “A great sanitary abuse and an ill-considered and reckless system of conservancy”. It was shared by the residents of the areas through which the garbage filled open wagons of Municipal Railway passed. Once there was a strike by refuse coolies and the open wagons filled with garbage were left for two-three days on the tracks and one can imagine the plight of the residents. When Subhas Chandra Bose was the Chief Executive Officer of Calcutta Corporation in 1925, he had promised that the system of garbage disposal through refuse railway would be discontinued. But it took another two decades to fulfil this assurance.

Nowadays, a fleet of lorries has taken the place of refuge railway. And the cattle pounds have been converted into Municipal garages for the upkeep of these lorries. Only Dhapa continues to be the sole dumping ground for the city though it has seen a lot of construction including the EM Bypass. However, the newly introduced garbage compactors have reduced its load substantially.