The Calcutta Improvement Trust was constituted under the Calcutta Improvement Act of 1911 to relieve congestion, drive new thoroughfares and improve insanitary quarters in the imperial capital. It cut major streets such as Central Avenue, developed new suburban areas and acquired land through compulsory purchase recovered partly by betterment charges. As in Bombay, road-widening and slum clearance displaced poorer inhabitants while extending a more regular street pattern. The Trust ran in parallel with the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, splitting urban authority.
It extended the improvement-trust model to eastern India and entrenched a divided structure of municipal and parastatal authority over the colonial metropolis.
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