Firhad Hakim appointed chairman of HIDCO

Kolkata: State Housing and Transport minister Firhad Hakim has been appointed as the Chairman of West Bengal Housing & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO). A notification in this regard has been published by the state Housing department.

This is the first time since the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government came to power in 2011 when a minister has been nominated as chairman of HIDCO. IAS officer Debashis Sen has been serving as the Chairman and Managing Director of HIDCO. Sen will continue to serve as the MD of HIDCO. Under the guidance of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the township has taken a new shape with creation of multiple revenue generating assets that has made New Town a self-sustaining city. Eco Park, Nazrul Tirtha, Rabindra Tirtha, Mother's Wax Museum has evolved as popular tourist and cultural destination.

New Town boasts of international standard facilities in the form of Biswa Bangla Convention Centre, solar powered as well as cloud-connected, energy-saving street lighting systems, along with pedestrian friendly pathways, graded cycle tracks promoting cycling, and introduction of electric buses and set up of multiple EV charging stations throughout the city to promote green transport, to name a few. New Town is a green smart city.

The New Town Planning Area was declared in 1999, constituting the erstwhile Bhangore Rajarhat Development Authority, comprising 45 mouzas under the North and South 24-Parganas.

During the Left Front regime when state housing minister Gautam Deb, the then Housing minister was the ex-officio chairman of HIDCO, there were a series of allegations of irregularities and nepotism. The CAG report gave a detail picture how the HIDCO, of which minister Deb was the chairman, had violated land allotment rule at almost every stage. Deb allegedly used his "chairman's quota" and "special quota" and allotted plots.