Kanchrapara

Kanchrapara is a city and a municipality[1] of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. From early historical period, geographically, this area had been full of swamps, natural riverine lake, low land, water bodies sparse village-settlements surrounded by deep jungle infested with wild animals of all kinds. However, around this area, there were several dozen villages more or less prosperous. This area underwent development from 1862– the Sealdaha Kusthia Broad Gauge Railway Line, through 1863– construction of a 132,000-square-metre (1,420,000 sq ft) locomotive workshop and railway station on the northernmost tip of Bizpur Mouza, undertaken by Eastern Bengal State Railway. In 1914 a carriage and wagon shop were added. Subsequently, a planned Railway Township was laid and built to the East & South West of the Workshops with a wide range of infrastructure. The resulting population increase caused the construction of huts and pucca buildings, necessitating the expansion of Municipal infrastructure beyond the Railway area. The Kanchrapara Municipality was carved out of the Halisahar municipality in the year 1917 AD, at the enterprise of Mr. Harnett, the then officer of Kanchrapara Railway Workshop.[2] This city was named Kanchrapara since the Railway Station at Bijpur was named after the then village Kanchanpalli or Kanchrapara. It was prosperous economically and culturally, being the seat of many stalwarts of Baishnab literature and early Bengali literature.[3]