New urban geographies of West Bengal, East India

Figures & data

Figure 1. Frequency distribution of population size of the Census Towns of West Bengal. Source: Indian census, 2011; calculations by authors.

Figure 2. Main Map, new urban geographies of West Bengal, East India.

Figure 3. Map of reconnaissance field site Sujapur. Yellow lines indicate administrative boundaries, built environment is displayed in greyish hue, and National Highway 12 zigzags through the area. Source: Copernicus Open Access Hub (n.d.); Indian census, 2011.

Table 1. Selected characteristics of the eight settlements that make up the Sujapur cluster.

			Chhota	Bara
		Chaspara	Suzapur	Suzapur	Nazirpur	Bamangram
		(CT)	(CT)	(CT)	(CT)	(CT)	Bakharpur	Gayesbari	Masimpur	Total/Avg.
Demographics	Population	7,731	11,216	15,808	8,778	13,550	12,148	9,745	9,279	88,255
	Households	1,665	2,290	3,306	1,744	3,004	2,610	2,026	2,024	18,669
	Avg. household size	4,6	4,9	4,8	5,0	4,5	4,7	4,8	4,6	4,7
	Area in km2	0,68	0,91	2,40	1,96	1,90	1,70	0,77	0,53	10,85
	Population density (ppl/sq km)	11,401	12,391	6,577	4,471	7,126	7,146	12,656	17,508	8,133
	Male nonfarm work (%)	90.6	91.0	89.1	78.8	76.2	86.7	88.2	69.0	83.7
Quality of the home	% of households with mud flooring	59.3	61.7	58.4	81.2	80.7	73.3	74.4	68.4	69.7
	% of households with concrete roofing	39.5	44.9	37.8	23.3	24.3	36.1	28.7	26.7	32.7
	% of households with mud walls	7.2	9.8	6.7	23.3	17.7	11.1	10.6	10.2	12.1
	% of homes with one room	48.7	40.6	40	42.1	48	46.4	47.5	37.5	43.9
	% of homes with electricity	76.5	79.4	80.9	65.2	50.8	59.9	62.9	71.6	68.4
	% of households with toilet facilities inside the home	71.5	80	70.5	59	56	60.5	57	77.2	66.5
	% of households with drinking water inside the home	77.4	67.5	56.1	68.5	61.3	64	60.2	63.8	64.9
	% of households using crop residue as main fuel for cooking	30.7	20.2	5.4	26.4	26.7	35.5	16.5	13.2	21.8
Assets	% of households with a television	24.1	26.5	31.6	15.5	11.5	17.3	19.2	21.1	20.9
	% of households with a mobile phone	45.2	50.5	50.6	39.7	35.6	32.1	34.1	49.5	42.2
	% of households with a car	1.5	0.8	0.9	0.6	0.2	0.3	0.5	0.3	0.6
	% of households with a motor/scooter/moped	4.5	4.3	4.5	4	2.4	2.6	3.6	5.6	3.9
	% of households with a bicycle	43.3	54.4	44.2	57.7	32.4	51.3	44.6	57.8	48.2
	% of households with access to formal banking services	18.3	31	34.9	19.7	11.5	15.1	14.7	25.1	21.3

Source: Indian census, 2011.

Photos 1–4. Clockwise from top left: (1) Sujapur's economic geography centers on an informal plastic waste recycling industry. (2) Piles of plastic waste can be observed along the highway and in the streets of the cluster. These plastics are sorted, cleaned and recycled. (3) Workers color sorting junk plastics. (4) Worker at a small waste processing firm, operating a machine to crush sorted plastic water bottles into compressed bundles (Photos by authors).

Photos 5–8. Clockwise from top left: (5) A stream of lorries on National Highway 12 near Sujapur. The highway is essential in the supply of plastic waste from all over the region. (6) These cleaned and sorted plastics will go either to Delhi or Kolkata, or to a factory in Umarpur, 70 km south of Sujapur for further processing. (7) One of the owners of a plastic waste recycling unit at Sujapur. In the background, a pile of color-sorted plastics. (8) New buckets made out of recycled plastics as found in many shops all over the region (Photos by authors).