Our History

Initiation of the Thought:

With the advancement of time, when we look back into the history of India, we find that in the year 1857 , an uprising spread across India but did not succeed due to lack of proper vision, disunity among revolutionaries and justified directions from the leadership. However, inspite of that, the prevailing situation brought about by the uprising, shivered the heart of British authority and forced them to think over the situation again. Finally, the British Parliament took over the charges from East India Company by “Victoria Charter”, to rule over India.

This resulted in a sea change in administration all over India. Naturally, 24 Parganas was also a part of this change. The authority then decided to establish some self governing bodies to ensure better services. During the year 1869,”South Subarban Municipality” was set up, that comprised of Behala and extended up to the extreme southern part of South 24 Parganas. Sri Roy Bahadur Ambika Charan Ray became the first chairman of the newly formed Municipality to look after the Southern part of district that included villages like Harinavi,Malancha,Chanripota etc.

 

Initiation of the Great Effort:

As time passed, consciousness of people around Harinavi , under the leadership of Zamindar Nabin Chand Ghosh  aroused and they started fighting a legal battle demanding for a separate municipality.The battle continued for two  years and finally the district magistrate endorsed the formation of a new municipality that was named “Rajpur Municipality” on the 1st of April 1876 covering an area of about 2sq miles and consisting of 5 wards .The wards  included Jagaddal, Rajpur, Harinavi, Kodalia, Malancha etc.

During this period, Rajpur was famous for commercial purpose and hence truly the name “Rajpur Municipality”. However, a problem to set up the new municipality arose. Zamindar Nabin Chand with his supervisor Panchanan Ghosh and Yogendranath Mitra resolved the issue by handing over their ancestral property in the form of will to the government.The actual position of this place is in front of the present D.V.A.S High School that stretches upto the road beside the eastern side of ancient Ganges.The place is known as ‘Harinavi More’.

 

Growth of the Municipality:

Thereafter, Jagaddal  ,Malancha, Mahinagar, Kodalia, Rajpur, Subhasgram (old Chanripota), Harinavi, Baikanthapur etc. villages of 11 mouzas were brought under municipal jurisdiction and the total area of Rajpur Municipality at that time was 20.98 sq.km with 14 wards.

Our municipality is proud of the great luminaries of that period such as –Manabendranath Roy, Hari Kumar Chakraborty , Satkari Bandhopadhyay, Kanailal Banerjee, Dr.Kartic Basu,Rishi Rajnarayan Basu, Girish Vidyaratna, Srisha Vidyanidhi, Aghornath Chakraborty, Janakinath Basu, Salil Chowdhury, Anukul Chandra Das etc.

 

Recent History & Present Scenario:

In the beginning of the last quarter of the twentieth century, a ruining situation arose. In the year 1980 our municipality became free from the administrator’s rule and a nominated board was formed in which Mr. Santimoy Bhattacharya and Mr. Kamal Bhattacharya were the first Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively in the left front governing period.

After one year a new municipal Board was formed through election and Mr. Santimoy Bhattacharya and Mr. Kamal Bhattacharya became the first elected Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively in the year 1981.

It was truly a turning situation from the point of municipal administration and the service provided by the municipality to the inhabitants. In accordance with the municipal constitution, multipurpose plans turned into real buildings and many dreams started turning true. And it was at this time that the overall performance index of Rajpur Municipality reached out and satisfied the local people.

Health related projects like CUDP-III, IPP-VIII etc. started being implemented during this period. A separate wing PWD for public works started performing during this period. The progress of Rajpur Municipality was significantly progressive in all respects. In 1981, the total population was 44,039 with literate of 66.6% and in 1991, the total population of this municipal area reached 64,000 with a literacy rate of 72% approximately.

After thorough survey backed by situational and technical analysis in view of rapid urbanization in and around Rajpur Municipality including those of the adjoining Gram Panchayats, the Government of West Bengal finally took the decision to extend the jurisdiction of Rajpur Municipality.

This resulted in the creation of the present form of Rajpur Municipality along with some added areas of the erstwhile adjacent Gram Panchayats (full six) and parts of four Gram Panchayats respectively on the 16th of December, 1993.

The erstwhile Rajpur Municipality, before merging, had only 11 mouzas. Thereafter, 26 mouzas were included in it and the newly formed municipality came to be known as “Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality” with an area of about 49.25 sq.km and a population of about 2, 28,000.00.

Sri Kamal Ganguly and Sri Pannalal Dey were the first Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively during the time of nominated board of the newly formed urban local body. On the 15th of May, 1994, a new municipal Board was formed through election and Sri Kamal Ganguly and Sri Raghu Basu became Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively.

In order to improve the services provided by the municipal body, ward no.2 &18 were delimited and divided into two halves on 23rd March, 2009.As a result of this, the total no. of wards became thirty five (35).During this period Sri Kamal Ganguly and Sri Tarit Chakraborty were the Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively.

 

Following is the brief description of all municipal boards starting from the year 1969:

Period	Description of Board	No. of Wards
Rajpur Municipality
1969 – 1980	Administrative Rule	14
1980	Nominated Board C.M. – Mr. Santimoy Bhattacharya V.C. – Mr. Kamal Bhattacharya	14
1981 – 1984	C.M. – Mr. Santimoy Bhattacharya V.C. – Mr. Kamal Bhattacharya	14
1984 – 1989	C.M. – Mr. Dipak Dutta V.C. – Mr. Kamal Bhattacharya	14
1984 – 1993	C.M. – Mr. Paritosh Dey V.C. – Mr. Samar Maitra & Mr. Pannalal Dey	14
Rajpur- Sonarpur Municipality
1993	Nominated Board C.M. – Mr. Kamal Ganguly V.C. – Mr. Pannalal Dey	30
1994 – 1999	C.M. – Mr. Kamal Ganguly V.C. – Mr. Raghu Basu	30
1999 – 2004	C.M. – Mr. Kamal Ganguly V.C. – Mr. Raghu Basu	33
2004 – 2009	C.M. – Mr. Kamal Ganguly V.C. – Mr. Tarit Chakraborty	33
2009	C.M. – Mr. Indu Bhusan Bhattacharyya V.C. – Firdousi Begam	35
2014-2015	Administrative Rule	35
2019-2020	C.M. – Dr. Pallab Kumar Das V.C- Smt. Santa Sarkar	35
2020-2022	Chairperson, B.O.A- Dr. Pallab Kumar Das	35
2015-2020	C.M. – Dr. Pallab Kumar Das	35

 

In order to provide better citizen centric welfare services, five (5) local offices in addition to the main office at Harinavi were set up by this Municipality. The local offices are:

1. Garia Local Office (Ward no. 1 to 7)
2. Sonarpur Local Office (Ward no. 8 to 15)
3. Rajpur Local Office (Ward no. 16 to 26)
4. Mahamayatala  Local Office (Ward no. 27 to 31)
5. Boral Local Office (Ward no. 32 to 35)

With the establishment of the above local offices, relationship between inhabitants of the municipality and the municipal administration has improved immensely. This has made it possible to accomplish various plans in reality. Based on the overall evaluation criteria, Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality has attained second(2nd) place out of a total of 126 municipalities of West Bengal in the financial year (2003-2004). It is also satisfactory to note that the average per capita expense of the municipality stands upto Rs.343/- till the last financial year.

With the active co-operation from the members of the Chairman-in-Council, Board of Council, six standing committees related to important departments, Poura Sakshrata Samity etc. at central level and ward committee, Ward Education Committee, Mother Teacher Association, Nagarik Committee ,Beneficiary Committee etc. at ward level , Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality has since then shown an upward trend since the last few years.

Sensitive habitants of the municipality with their optimistic views turned the political situation of the municipality in the election held on 27th June, 2009. Trinamool Congress took over the charge of this historical institution. Sri Indubhusan Bhattacharya and Firdousi Begum were elected as the Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively with the aim to serve the “Maa Mati Manush” of this municipality.