Our Legacy

BE (East) took shape as Salt Lake's first planned blocks were being settled, when a handful of families decided that a new address should also become a neighbourhood. The earliest Durga Puja was held on an open plot with a borrowed pandal frame, subscription collected door to door in a cloth bag, and accounts read aloud to everyone who had contributed.

That first reading of accounts set the tone for everything that followed. Openness was never a policy here — it was simply how the block preferred to do things.

As the celebration grew beyond what an informal group could carry, residents formally constituted the Salt Lake BE (East) Puja Committee with an elected President, Secretary and Treasurer, an annual general meeting, audited accounts and a written set of resolutions.

The committee has been re-elected by the general body every year since, and the office has changed hands many times without a single interruption to the celebration.

Every AGM notice, treasurer's statement, audit report and resolution has been retained. This archive exists so that the next generation of office bearers inherits not only a responsibility but a record — and so that any resident, at any time, can read exactly how their community has been run.