SERVICE CENTRE PLANNING FOR AREA

DEVELOPMENT OF DIAMOND HARBOUR SUBDIVISION

SOUTH 24 PARGANA, WEST BENGAL.

Sakti MandalCalcutta University Research Scholar

(CSIR JRF)

INTRODUCTION

The concept of service centres is the outcome of classical ‘Central Place Theory ‘of Christallar and Losch. The fundamental element of ‘Central Place theory’ is the ‘Centre Place’ providing central functions, which are available at a few places.

There are two main features of service centres i.e. (i) The provision of external services (ii) Trade and commercial activities. Service

centres integrated rural and urban activities and created new employment opportunities for the region.

STUDY AREA

This subdivision covered an area of 1264.68 sq km and the

total population is about 1836769 as per 2001 census. It

considered an overall 26.60% of the total district population.

Diamond Municipality is the only one urban area in the

Subdivision, which covered very small area of 10.36 sq km.

Though it was established long in 1982, its rate of growth or

expansion is really pitiable. The density of population is very

high which is about 3594/sq km. But it is 2.36% of the total

population of the Subdivision. So easily assumed that 97.37%

of the total Sub divisional population lives in rural areas,

where development is taken care of by the panchayet bodies.

LOCATION MAP OF THE STUDY AREA

OBJECTIVE

The main objectives of the proposed work are as follows:-

(i) To identify potential growth centres and demarcates

their influence zones.

(ii) To appraise the physical resources viz. land, water,

vegetation etc. and cultural resources viz. Human

resource base, agricultural resource, industrial

resource and their localizing factors etc.

(iii) To present a perspective plan for balance development

of the Subdivision.

METHODOLOGY

Community development block have been taken as the unit of analysis. Various data have been collected by the District Gazetteer, District Statistical Hand Book, Statistical abstract of the district etc.For calculating service centres spacing in the study area ‘Mather’s formula has been employed.The spatial pattern of distance of service centres, Nearest Neighbour Analysis (N.N.A) has been employed.Functional Centrality Index.

IDENTIFICATION OF SERVICE CENTRES

(i) The settlement should be linked with metalled road.(ii) The marketing facility is a must.(iii) A settlement with 2000 or more population having educational (excluding primary school), medical and communicational facilities has been treated as service centre.(iv)As per 2001 census, out of the district total working force, share of the centre should be at least 0.05%.

Based on above criteria 29 settlements of the subdivision have been identified as service centres.

SPATIAL PATTERN OF SERVICE CENTRE

The term “spatial pattern” signifies the form of their distribution which indicates the locational arrangement of points over the geographical space. The spatial distribution of pattern of service centre varies from region to region depending upon the physico-cultural variations. For calculating service centres spacing in the study area ‘Mather’s formula has been employed. This formula is mathematically expressed as H.S = 1.0746 A/N,

Where, H.S. = Hypothetical spacing between two centres, A= Area, N=

Number of service centres.

Categories of H.S.Taking the block including municipality as an aerial unit, hypothetical inter service centre spacing has been calculated and three categories have been worked out i.e. low, moderate and high spacing.Four C.D. Blocks fall in low (below 3.5 km) spacing group. Those are Magrahat II, Mathurapur I, Diamond Harbour I, and Falta. This due to availability of various infrastructures required for the creation of service centres. Moderate spacing group (3.5 to Bellow 7 km) holds four C.D. Blocks, namely-Magrahat I, Mathurapur II, Diamond Harbour II, and Mandirbazar. One C.D. Block Kulpi, with 15.6 km. comes under high spacing group above 7 km.

For working out the spatial pattern of distance of service centres, Nearest Neighbour Analysis (N.N.A) has been employed . 1. ro = di / n Where, ro= The mean actual nearest neighbour distance Di= The distance from the i th point to its own nearest neighbour n= Number of locations in the pattern. For computing the rE (Expected mean distance) following mathematical

expression is used: 2. rE = 0.5√A/N Where, rE= Expected mean distance, A= Area of the unit, N= Number of service centre in

the pattern.Index of randomness (Rn) has been calculated at the level by using the Clark

and Evan’s formula given bellow: 3. Rn = ro /rE Where, Rn = Index of Randomness, ro = The mean actual distance

observed, rE = The expected mean distance.

CHARACTERSTICS OF SERVICE CENTRE

Sl. No.

Name of Block

Area in Sq km

No. of Service Centre

ro, mean actual distance (Km)

rE, expected mean distance

RN value

H.SHypothetical spacing (Km)

ro as % of Di (Index of Randomness)

1 Magrahat I 119.04

3 8.68 1.81 4.79 3.90 222.56

2 Magrahat II 136.93

6 14.27 0.97 14.71

2.09 682.77

3 Mandirbazar 118.07

2 5.37 2.72 1.97 5.83 99.81

4 Kulpi 210.83

1 8.69 7.26 1.19 15.60 55.70

5 Falta 130.68

4 11.37 1.42 8.00 3.07 370.35

6 Diamond Harbour I

78.79 3 9.51 1.47 6.46 3.17 300.00

7 Diamond Harbour II

95.59 2 8.48 2.44 3.47 5.25 161.52

8 Mathurapur I 147.30

4 10.96 1.51 7.25 3.26 336.19

9 Mathurapur II 227.45

4 14.68 1.88 7.80 4.05 362.46

DEMARCATION OF INFLUENCE ZONES

Influence zone of a service centre is consequence of locational network, distributional pattern of population, status of infrastructure, facilities and accessibility to the centre. These factors lead to interaction of people who prefer a particular service centre, because of proximity based on least travel time, cost and efforts. Functional magnitude, commercial population and working force are the reliable indicators of centrality. Therefore considering the agrarian economy and rural character of the study area, 32 functions like education, health, transport and communications, administration, agricultural extension and credit /finance institutions existing at service centres, have been taken into account.

The weightage for 32 selected functions has been determined by applying Bhat’s formulla:

Wi = N / Fi Where, Wi= Weightage to the i th function, N= Total number of settlement of the district, Fi= Total number of settlements having the i th

function.Functional Centrality Index (F.C.I): FW1+ FW2+…………..n F.C.I = ----------------------------------- X 100 ∑w Where, F.C.I. = Functional centrality index, FW = weightage of function, ∑w = Summation of weightage score of all service centres

of the area.Working Population Index: WI = Wi / w X 100 Where, Wi = working population of i th service

centre. W= Total working population of the district.

Godlund’s formula with slight modifications been used for calculation C.I. index which is-

C.I. = (Tcpi /Tcp) X 100 Where, C.I. = Commercial population index, Tcpi = Trade and commercial population of i th

service centre, Tcp = Total trade and commercial population of

district.

Taking an average of functional centrality index (FCI), working population index (W.I) and commercial population index (C.I),The composite centrality index (C.O.I.) has been calculated for all 29 service centres employing the following expression:

FCI + WI + CI C.O.I. = ------------------- X 100

3

Service centres, population and Centrality Index

S.LNo. Order

Name of the

Service Centre

Population

F.C.I C.I. W.I. C.O.I

1 1st order Diamond Harbour (M)

30266 74.12 0.82 0.53 25.15

2 2nd order Magrahat 14634 33.63 0.25 0.18 11.35

3 3rd order Usthi 4570 24.25 0.07 0.05 8.12

4 Sarisha 3690 22.37 0.08 0.05 7.5

5 Mathurapur 7384 19.96 0.09 0.09 6.71

6 Baribhanga Abad

6040 19.34 0.04 0.08 6.48

7 4th order

Kamarpol 8526 17.37 0.14 0.11 5.87

8 Kulpi 2896 13.22 0.07 0.06 4.45

9 Lakshikantapur

3514 12.43 0.07 0.05 4.18

10 Gillarchat 24489 9.91 0.50 0.34 3.58

11 Raidighi 18917 9.96 0.33 0.26 3.51

12 Krishnachandrapur

7244 10.11 0.11 0.09 3.43

13 Sirakol 8661 9.40 0.14 0.12 3.22

Continue table

S.LNo. Order

Name of the Service Centre Populatio

nF.C.I C.I. W.I. C.O.

I14 5th

orderDhamua 8933 8.57 0.16 0.12 2.95

15 Uttar Krishnanagar 10854 7.74 0.18 0.17 2.69

16 Fatepur 7330 7.89 0.15 0.11 2.68

17 Masat 4969 7.66 0.06 0.06 2.59

18 lakshinarayanpur 9438 7.35 0.07 0.13 2.51

19 Hottor 3785 7.33 0.06 0.05 2.48

20 Nalua 15572 6.85 0.26 0.21 2.44

21 Panch Gansingbar 7332 6.86 0.07 0.08 2.33

22 Purbo Gopalnagar 3657 6.86 0.06 0.05 2.32

23 Basulat 4518 6.26 0.06 0.06 2.12

24 Serpur 7506 5.99 0.10 0.10 2.06

25 Chalk paran katakhali 6684 6.00 0.11 0.09 2.06

26 Dihi Kalash 9594 5.91 0.17 0.12 2.05

27 Krishnarambasu 3634 5.78 0.03 0.05 1.95

28 Harisankarpur 10099 5.32 0.14 0.12 1.86

29 Chandapala Anantapathpur

4905 5.39 0.06 0.07 1.84

Hierarchy of service centreDiamond Harbour (M) town is only the 1st order service centre in the subdivision having 22.15 C.O.I. by virtue of being administrative headquarters of the subdivision and high concentration of higher function as well as greater share of commercial and working population. The first order service centre comprises 3.44% of total service centre. Magrahat is only the 2nd order service in the subdivision having 11.35 C.O.I. due to block headquarter and also higher function. 3rd order service centres i.e. Usthi, Sarisha, Mathurapur (Bhq.) and Baribhanga Abad of which one is block headquarter and three have higher level functions. Their composite centrality ranges 8.12, 7.5, 6.71 and 6.48 respectively. These 3rd order service centres comprise 13.79 of the total service centre. Fourth and fifth includes 7 and 16 centres which C.O.I. ranges between 5.87 (Kamarpol) and 1.84 (Chandapala Anantapathpur). These 4th and 5th order service centres comprise 24.13% and 55.17% of total service centres. (Table -3)

Hierarchy of service centre

Composite Centrality

Index (COI)

Number of

service centre

% of total

service

Hierarchical

order

>15.0009.00 – 12.0006.00 –

09.0003.00 -

06.00<03.00Subdivision

total

1147

1629

3.443.4413.7924.1355.17

100.00

1st order2nd order3rd order4th order5th order

-

CONCLUSION

In this study, the entire area of the subdivision has been organized through service centres as they perform various socio-economic functions and provide facilities. These facilities should be made easily available to consumers with 3 to 5 km radius. The subdivision area therefore requires more service centres.

Thank you