won by M/s. "Invest Import" Company of erstwhile Yugoslavia. These marshy, shallow salt water lakes were chosen as the site for developing the auxiliary township of Kolkata. Salt Lake City, later renamed as Bidhannagar, as a mark of recognition to one of its founders, Dr. Roy.
In fact, the area was a conglomerate of several salt lakes, a low-lying saucer shaped area, which was lower than the adjoining drainage channels. The only available method of development was to fill these salt lakes to a higher level which would permit gravity drainage through the nearby channels. The Hooghly river, lying in the western fringe of Kolkata, needed dredging to maintain the minimum draught for ships. By May 19, 1956, the Government had taken over the lands and then gradually Salt Lake started taking shape. The erstwhile Yugoslav firm "Invest Import" (selected by a global tender) was entrusted with the reclamation work of the swampy land area. Pipes were laid down from Chitpur lockgate in the north of Kolkata to Salt Lake for bringing silt from the bed of Hooghly river to Salt Lake via a number of pumping stations. It took nearly 7 years to fill up the 12.35 km² of land with dredged silt, which was once a very fertile fishing zone. On 16 April 1962, the Salt Lake City was officially born.The original planner of Bidhannagar was a Yugoslav named Dobrivoje Tošković.His master plan was approved by the Government on 9 April 1964.He revisited his planned city in 2007.
The development of the area was done in "Sectors". The plots were classified as residential, residential (shop-allowable), commercial, institutional and industrial. By 1965, Sector-I was complete and by 1969, Sector-II and Sector-III were ready for occupancy. Then came up the industrial Sectors IV and V (the location of the IT industries). The Sector IV contains Nicco Park (erstwhile Jhilmill) — the first amusement park of eastern India with 40 acres (160,000 m) of land and the Nalban Boating Complex and
