Back in March 1970, Mr. Jitendra Nath Chakraborty and his family settled down at AB 129, sector I to become the first resident of Salt Lake. 2020, thus, marked the 50 th anniversary of Salt Lake as a residential area. Conceived after independence as a modern planned city by reclaiming parts of the wetlands bordering Kolkata, Salt Lake today is a busy bustling area with residences, offices, markets, sports complex and educational institutions. In last fifty years it has witnessed many historical moments; it housed refugees fleeing East Pakistan during the Liberation War (1971); as it expanded it generated conflicts about ecological consequences of wetland reclamation; in last fifty years the township witnessed significant changes in the demography and ecology; it also emerged as the centre of governance. Salt Lake, however, awaits its historian. We at the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata have taken the first step to preserve the history of the township by establishing a local history archive. The archive, at this moment, has the following material:

• Interviews of more than 50 residents of Salt Lake
• Local newspapers – Laban Hrad Sangbad, Salt Lake Post, Susangbad
• Souvenirs, brochures
• Photographs from personal collections
• Maps
• Legislative Assembly Debates, census
• Literary material on Salt Lake
• Popular histories and academic writings on Salt Lake