Kharagpur

      The moment we hear name of  the place Kharagpur, first and foremost thing that come in our mind is about IIT Kharagpur and railway station. It's quite obvious as  Kharagpur has been known as first Indian Institute of technology since May 1950. Also it has one of the largest railway workshops in India, and the third longest railway platform in the world (1072.5 m). It's an Industrial city located in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal.

             Kharagpur junction


                   IIT KHARAGPUR

         Name of this place as Kharagpur was given by its 12th king Mallabhum Dynasty, kharga malla. It's said that initially it was part of Hijli kingdom and ruled by oriya rulers under Gajapati kings of Odisha.

      In 16th century this place was said to be a small village surrounded by a dense forest. Only habitant based over there was Hijli which was a small island village situated on the banks of the Rasalpur river in the delta of bay of Bengal. Later in the year 1687 this place was developed into a port town. Hijli existed until 1886 covering part of Bengal and Odisha. It is surrounded  by towns like Tamluk, Panskura, and Debra, along with the Kelghai and Haldi rivers on the north, south, and east sides bounded by Bay of Bengal and Kharagpur, Keshiary, Dantan, and Jaleswar on the west.


          Tamluk
          Panskura

   Until 1754 Hijli  province was at its peak and it was highly prosperous. It is also said that Hijli had excellent business and trade centers with judiciary, prison, and administrative offices during the reign of Hindu Kings and during the Mughal Raj. 

       Captain Nicolson was the first colonialist to capture Hijli in the year 1687 with the help of Job charnock. After a treaty signed between Job Charnock and Mughals Job had to face huge loss which forced him to leave Hijli and move towards Uluberia. Later part they settled at Sutanuti in Kolkata in order to establish there business in India.  That was the start of East India company in India. 

     Kharagpur junction was established in the year 1898.  The first railway establishment was build between Cuttack – Balasore – Kharagpur and from Sini to Kolaghat via Kharagpur. After that railway company came forward to offer job all unemployed men's over there and also provided them free rides.  Trains between Howrah and Kharagpur was possible only after bridge got constructed over Rupnarayan river in April 1900. In order to contruct Haldia port rail link got connected primarily from Panshkura to Durgachak after independence.via Tamlik in 1968. 

  Kharagpur has Asia's largest SSI (solid State Interlocking) system.  South place of Kharagpur belongs to Indian railways where later Britishers build their housing. Kharagpur railway colony has the biggest settlement in India having quarters of 13000.

    The BNR (Bengal Nagpur Railway) ground, owned by the railway, is a very large undeveloped playground which holds great potential to be developed and properly maintained.

           BNR GROUNDKharagpur

The most famous festivals here are Durga Puja, Eid-ul-Fitr, Ganesh Puja, Eid-ul-Azha, Saraswati Puja, Shab-e-Barat, Kali Puja, Muharram, Ammavaari Puja, Navratri, Barah wafat and others. The biggest festival of all is the Dussehra or Ravan Pora


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Siliguri: Once a No Man’s Land

Image
Siliguri: Once a No Man’s Land             Siliguri is situated at the foot of the Himalayas and surrounded by the Mahananda River in North bengal. It is also known as the ‘Gateway to the North East’, Surrounded by four international borders i.e Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and China.        Siliguri is also one of the most heavily protected areas in India.  City has a fascinating history let’s start at the very beginning.       According to one popular theory, name of this place comes from ‘ sali’   or ‘bow’ in the language of the local Lepcha tribe.            But British writer E C Dozey, in his book   A Concise History of the Darjeeling District (1917) writes, ‘ Siliguri derives its name from the stones which once lay in myriads on the bed of the Mahananda river, which flows to the north of the town .         ‘Siliguri’ is thus a combination of ‘ sil ' (stone) and ‘ guri’   (place). Many places in North Bengal end with   ' guri ', like Jalpaiguri and Moynaguri etc. Acc
Read more

Chandannagar-a crescent moon

Image
Chandannagar      The moment we hear about Chandannagar first thing that comes in our mind is all about light decoratives done during puja. This place comes under hoogly district located near western bank of hoogly river. It's also called as French colony as this place was said to be first created by french people by occupying small localities in that area.               Name of this place is derived from the shape of the bank of the river Hooghly which is bent like a half-moon (in Bengali, Chand means moon and Nagar implies city), so originally it was chander nagar. Also it's said that there is famous temple of goddess "chandi" besides whom this place was named. According to some localites this place was the major hub of  trade of Sandal.       It's believed in the year 1688 french east india company deslandes paid 40,000 coins to Mughal subahdar in order to build factories .   In the year 1730 Joseph François Dupleix was appointed as governor of that city and un
Read more