Calcutta in ambitious plan to remodel itself on London

A newly elected city government has adopted a £60 million blueprint to beautify the Hooghly riverfront along the lines of the South Bank, build a "Calcutta Eye" Ferris wheel, redevelop its zoo along the lines of Regent's Park and offer University of London degrees at a new Calcutta School of Economics.

Calcutta was founded by Josh Charnock, a British East India Company administrator, who encamped on the banks of the river Hooghly in 1690.

It was the premier city of Britain's overseas empire for nearly 250 years - serving as the capital of British India until 1911 - but has fallen into disrepair since independence in 1947.

Mamata Banerjee, the new chief minister, last month ended the rule of the world's oldest democratically elected communist government in West Bengal.

She wasted no time in announcing that modern-day Calcutta would take its inspiration from the former imperial capital. "All the agencies have come together to convert Calcutta into another London," she said.

The one-year project will begin in 2012 to "renovate and decorate" a six-mile stretch of the river, with the aim of making the Hooghly the city's focal point, just as "London was created around the river Thames".

A giant Ferris wheel on a five-acre plot in central Calcutta, in the image of the London Eye, will adorn the Hooghly's banks, looking down on the sprawling metropolis of 16 million people below.

An official for Project Calcutta Eye said the price of a ticket will be "easier on the pocket" than the London Eye, in a country where over 80 per cent of the population earn less than £1.20 a day.

The Alipore zoo, whose roots date back to a private collection of exotic animals established in 1800 by Arthur Wellesley, later the 1st Duke of Wellington, in his summer home at nearby Barrackpore, would also receive a London makeover.

"When we are thinking of turning Calcutta into London, it is only logical that we should think about making the London zoo the benchmark for Calcutta," said Hiten Burman, forest minister.

Calcutta's Cambridge School is launching an undergraduate institution called the Calcutta School of Economics (CSE) this summer.

"Students will get the same degrees that students of the London School of Economics get," claimed Sarojesh Mukherjee, the school's director.

An LSE spokesperson said it would provide academic direction for some courses, but the degrees would be awarded by the University of London.

"The only difference between students here and on the London campus will be that they will not be physically at the university," Mr Mukherjee said.

There are plans to extend the "London project" if the river beautification is a success, including transforming the city's Curzon Park, currently famous for the size of its rats, into a public space of "Hyde Park-standards".

The park is named after Lord Curzon, the viceroy who once said of Calcutta: "A glance at the buildings in the town, at the river and the roar and the smoke, is sufficient to show that Calcutta is a European city set down upon Asiatic soil."

Miss Banerjee will hope her project will cast off Calcutta’s association with the slums in which Mother Teresa worked and once again put this “City of Palaces” on the world map.