1Research Scholar, Department of Geography, Lady Brabourne College, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal. E-mail: anindita.mookherjee@gmail.com
2Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Lady Brabourne College, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal. E-mail: chattopadhyaysubhra@yahoo.in
The Growth Centre approach in regional planning is perceived as a vehicle of balanced, decentralized and sustainable regional development. This study aims at identifying the growth centres and growth points of North Twenty-four Parganas district of West Bengal, India. The factors of population, accessibility and amenities have been taken into account. Development indexing is done for municipalities in the district. The study assessed the development potentiality of the region and theoretically identified areas suitable to act as growth centre and growth points for a balanced regional development. It is suggested that instead of converting fertile rural agricultural land into new growth nodes for easing congestion problems of Kolkata Metro city, new towns in true sense could be selected from the first order towns in this study.
