Ismaile & Chakma. Space and Culture, India 2021, 9:1 Page | 97 https://doi.org/10.20896/saci.v9i1.1111 PERSPECTIVE OPEN ACCESS Impact of Changing Administrative Boundaries on Development of Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur Districts, West Bengal Sk Ismaile†* and Dr. Namita Chakma¥ Abstract Generally, new districts are formed to facilitate administrative expediency or ease of administrative connectivity in a much better way. Often it reduces the distance between the district headquarters and remote areas resulting in easy access to the district headquarters with investing less time and strain. Apparently, it becomes helpful to interact with the beneficiaries in implementing and monitoring the government schemes and programmes in the areas near the district headquarters and remote areas, which is essential for the overall development of a region. In the present study, a meso-level specific comparative analysis has been done at inter and intra district level on the basis of some selected socio-economic indicators (based on Census of India data sources) to understand the impact of reorganisation of the administrative boundaries on the development of Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal, India. Keywords: District Reorganisation; Development; Inter-Regional; Intra-Regional; West Bengal; India † Research Scholar, Department of Geography, The University of Burdwan, Burdwan, 713104, West Bengal, India *Corresponding AuthorE-mail id: [email protected] ¥ Associate Professor, Department of Geography, The University of Burdwan, Purba Barddhaman-713104, West Bengal, India, Email: [email protected] © 2021 Ismaile & Chakma. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Nath. Space and Culture, India 2014, 1:3 Page | 98 Introduction In general, the main reason behind district In recent years, various countries’ central and reorganisation is to improve the level of local authorities have been involved in development in every corner of the district for its reorganisation or reconstitution of the local being shorter in area. Hence, the principal administrative boundaries for providing better objective of this study is to analyse the progress civic amenities and public services, such as of development after the reorganisation of the communication, healthcare, education, public districts in the state of West Bengal. At the same administration, justice, etc. India is not an time, it also tries to examine the pattern of inter- exception to this trend. In the last 28 years, most district disparity before and after the of the states of India have also gone through reorganisation. In this context, both Uttar local government administrative reforms and Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur districts have districts reorganisation process. Out of the total been selected for the study. Though many 731 districts, 259districts were formed between districts were bifurcated and new districts were 1991 and 2019. Earlier, there were only nine created from1980 to 2017, such as bifurcation of districts in Manipur state, but after the final 24 Parganas district into North 24 Parganas and declaration of seven new districts by the state, South 24 Parganas (1986), Purba Mednipore and the total number of districts in the state now has Paschim Mednipore were created bifurcating become 16. There were only ten districts in the Mednipore district (2002). On the other Telangana state when it was bifurcated from the hand, Aliporeduar, Purba Barddhaman, Paschim state of Andhra Pradesh; later on, 17 new Barddhaman, Kalimpong, Jhargram districts districts were formed in 2016. As of now, this were created from 2011 to 2017. state has 31 districts in total. During the time of This study has purposefully avoided the newly Independence, West Bengal was divided into 14 created districts as the development scale could districts. After that, in each census decade not be examined appropriately within a very (except 1961-71 and 1971-81) one or more new short span of time. Both Uttar Dinajpur and districts were created, and in the last census, the Dakshin Dinajpur districts were separated just total number of districts came to 19. From 2011 after the 1991 Census to easily access the census to 2017, the State Government of West Bengal data from the 1991 Census to evaluate the block- has formed five new districts (Aliporeduar, wise development level before the district Jhargram, Kalimpong, Purba Barddhaman, reorganisation. To study the post reorganisation Paschim Bardhaman) by editing and altering the scenario, block-wise secondary data could be former ones. Hence the number of districts in accessed from the 2011 Census. So one can West Bengal has increased from 19 in 2011 to 23 easily examine the changes in development level in 2017. after reorganisation of the district in the last 20 Generally, new districts are formed for years. Thus, in the present study, a meso-level administrative expediency or ease of spatial comparative analysis has been done administration so that the distance between the based on some selected socio-economic district headquarters and remote areas are parameters before and after reorganisations of shortened, which, in turn, helps with better the West Dinajpur district to understand its implementation and monitoring of government impact on socio-economic development in the schemes and programmes and also maintaining last two decades. law and order in remote areas as well as for The present study begins with a detailed review overall development of the region. However, of the existing literature to identify the lacuna of sometimes some political motives, various socio- the previous research, followed by the cultural factors, jurisdictional area and geographical and administrative description of population size of the district also work behind the study area. The study then discusses the it. objectives of the present study and the Nath. Space and Culture, India 2014, 1:3 Page | 99 methodology adopted for this research. The redesigned their administrative structures by concluding remarks have been drawn after the consolidating the lowest administrative units thorough analysis of the results obtained from into bigger ones. The Third World countries have the examination of different sets of data. generally continued with their structures, with Afterwards, some suggestive measures have also some occasional ad hoc modifications, mostly in been specified for the lagging areas. the nature subdivision of larger units into smaller Literature Review ones (Krishan,1988). Several countries have gone in for the reform of Since independence, several researchers have their administrative map under unstable already conducted many studies on the conditions. Spatial patterns of administrative reorganisation of state and district boundaries in reorganisation at the international level have India. Parmeshwarn and Chattopadhyay (2014) been identified by reviewing relevant literature stated the methodical perspective to form a new on the subject matter. The turbulent history state. They also focused on the shortcomings of since World War-I necessitated extensive the 1956 Reorganization Commission’s Report at reforms in most European countries because of the time of Indian state reorganisation post unprecedented population distribution, independence. According to them, the size of economic activity and transport technology the state should have a limit—a maximum (Blacksell, 1974).The administrative map of population size of 40 million for a state. This is Roumania has been reformed almost twelve because human development is inversely related times since World WarI (Helin, 1967). Since the to the population size of the state. They suggest communist attainment to power in 1949, China’s that creating a new state needs to be looked at political map has undergone a series of physiographic region, natural resources fundamental changes (Ginsburg, 1952). New distribution, agro-climate and river basins, and population distributions and cultural arrangements were designed specifically to concentrate power at the intermediate level. characteristics of the proposed new state. Rao This had the dual advantage of being more local (2017) has assessed the district reorganisation of and at the same time, less distant from the Telangana. He described that the Government of centre. Telengana had formed 21 new districts to take the administration closer to the people. But the Among the developing countries, India recast its formation of the small district does not administrative map on 1 November 1965. It was automatically lead to good and effective a grand reorganisation of the states on a governance and quality services. Therefore, he linguistic basis; units smaller than the states had suggested some recommendations– the were only marginally affected. However, it was location of the district Headquarter has to be indicated that some of the new administrations more accessible to the majority of its residents; must review the number and territorial extent of delegation of decision making power to lower- the existing districts (Government of India, level officials; merger of different departments 1955). The Planning Commission had also which are involved in similar and integrated suggested that even during the First Plan (1951- functions; and transfer of certain functions to 56), it