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Abstract
The present paper deals with holistic analysis of urban infrastructure as well as amenities in selected slum-pockets of Berhampore Municipality in Murshidabad District, West Bengal. Berhampore, being the oldest municipality of Murshidabad District was specified in the year of 1869 and then was established permanently in the year of 1876. Berhampore Municipality is encompassing total twenty-three wards the cumulative population-strength of which is more than 1.5 lakhs. A good number of wards in the municipality are slum-infested and here the slums are categorized under four broad subdivisions namely a) slums situated beside river Ganges, b) slums adjacent to the non-slum localities, c) slums beside the railway lines or the railway slum-colonies and d) slums comprising of minority communities and slums of the extremely backward categories of population that are suffering from acute economic marginalisation. In the current research, those specific slums only have been studied which are akin to the river holy Ganges. In the pre-field phase of the study, the Draft Development Plans (published from the end of Berhampore M), selected journals, Government reports and records etc have been come across to conceive a concrete idea on the specific research-problem. Thenceforth, a perception study has been conducted in selected slum-units where the purposive stratified sampling technique has been taken into consideration to select the target population. In the last phase, databases procured from the questionnaire survey, have been compiled, analysed thoroughly and certain inferences have also been drawn through manifold quantitative techniques. Side by side of the quantitative dealings, the qualitative surveys have also been accomplished herewith in order to know the public-repercussions regarding Government’s performance in providing urban-infrastructure and amenities into the slum-ambience of Berhampore ULB. Poor educational infrastructure for the slum-dwellers, hindrances in attaining higher-education for the economically challenged people, inadequate parks and play-grounds for the slum-children, insufficient public-toilets for the slum-inhabitants, lacuna in municipal health-care services, problems of traffic and transport and some other burning issues have come in the fore-front through the primary survey. At last, the researcher has also recommended some fruitful planning measures by adopting which, the local self Government of Berhampore may be able to eradicate miscellaneous infrastructural ailments from the affected slum-areas and improvise upon their socio-economic scenario to a considerable extent in future.