Identity scramble on wasteland: Dhapa Dhipi residents struggle to prove who they are
Telegraph | 13 November 2025
In a patch of land where Calcutta once dumped its waste, thousands of families now live in unorganised settlements. Fires are common here, and when houses burn, identity papers are destroyed too.
Many residents of Dhapa Dhipi are now worried about how to prove their identities if the Election Commission (EC) summons them after they submit enumeration forms. Some did not have their names on the 2002 voter list. Fires have destroyed documents belonging to their parents, whose names may have appeared on that list, several residents said.
Metro followed two booth-level officers (BLOs) in a pocket inhabited by economically and socially marginalised Calcuttans. Many did not complete school and started daily wage work at a young age. None owns land in their name.
Local political party offices have become their helplines. Clubs and party offices are filled with people trying to find out if their names — or those of their parents and grandparents —appeared on the 2002 list. Responding to the flood of enquiries, the local councillor has put up banners with QR codes showing voter lists for all parts of the neighbourhood.
“Lost everything”
Forty-two-year-old Sumitra Das stood in a queue outside a club on Wednesday morning that also serves as the local Trinamool Congress office.
“I voted for the first time in 2024. I got my voter card only a couple of years ago. I’m not sure if my parents’ names were on the 2002 list. I lost their voter cards in a fire that gutted our home a few years ago,” Sumitra said.
Local party workers promised to search the 2002 list for her parents’ or grandparents’ names, but without any voter card, the task will be challenging, they said.
Sumitra’s situation is not unique. A Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) official said fires have destroyed over 20 unorganised settlements — many not even recognised as slums in civic records — in the past two years alone.
When huts burn, families lose all identity proof. Getting duplicate documents is a long and difficult process. Many may not have recovered their papers yet, the KMC official said.
Dhapa Dhipi, also called Rajarghat Notunpara, is a colony with over 5,500 voters spread across four parts. Residents come from diverse linguistic backgroundsbut nearly all work as daily wage earners — ragpickers, food delivery partners, drivers, and KMC conservancy workers.
Every Assembly constituency is divided into wards, which are further divided into parts. One BLO hasbeen assigned to distribute the enumeration forms in each part.
The narrow concrete lanes, barely six feet wide, arebroken and fractured. In some places, crushed bricks over mud serve as the only pathway. Rows of one-story huts line both sides. Overlooking the colony are high-rise apartments and star hotels along EM Bypass.
Decades ago, Dhapa Dhipi was Calcutta’s waste dumping site. “We’ve heard stories that goods trains carrying waste from the Entally Workshop of the KMC used to come here to throw the city’s waste,” said Sandipan Saha, councillor of Ward 58.
How to find voters
As with many unorganised settlements, there are no house numbers in the colony. Locating homes among the scores of houses on each lane is difficult, BLOs said.
“The lanes are narrow but long. There’s no other way to track down a voter except by asking residents for directions to a particular voter’s home,” said Amalesh Dhali, a BLO distributing forms in part of the colony.
Saha said he printed banners mentioning part numbers and QR codes that link to voter lists for each part.
“We’re helping those who can’t fill out forms at our camps. Those who can fill them out on their own can scan the code to see if their names or those of their parents or grandparents appear on the 2002 list,” he said.