Jalpaiguri, West Bengal
Jalpaiguri derives its name from the olive fruit, which is locally known as ‘jalpai’ – it literally means a place where olives are found abundantly. It is a small town of only 100,000 people located in North Bengal Region in the State of West Bengal.
Jalpaiguri was initially founded as a trading center, as the origin of its name suggests. The town was part of the Duars area of the old Kamarupa and later the Bhutanese Kingdom which was later annexed by the British in 1864.
The town saw its main boom period during the late 19th and early 20th century, when the British found the region north-east of the town (called the Dooars Region), near the foothills of the Bhutan hills very suitable for tea cultivation. Within a very small period the area was dotted with thousands of tea gardens, with Jalpaiguri town becoming the port-of-call for all going to those gardens. People flocked to the town to lay their hands on a part of the lucrative tea-trade. This resulted in the cosmopolitan nature of the town, with people from many parts of the country settling there. Business boomed and the town established itself as the premier commercial and cultural hub of the northern Bengal Region. It also helped that the town was well connected with Kolkata (then Calcutta), as it lay on the main Railway link between Calcutta and Darjeeling.
Jalpaiguri was initially founded as a trading center, as the origin of its name suggests. The town was part of the Duars area of the old Kamarupa and later the Bhutanese Kingdom which was later annexed by the British in 1864.
The town saw its main boom period during the late 19th and early 20th century, when the British found the region north-east of the town (called the Dooars Region), near the foothills of the Bhutan hills very suitable for tea cultivation. Within a very small period the area was dotted with thousands of tea gardens, with Jalpaiguri town becoming the port-of-call for all going to those gardens. People flocked to the town to lay their hands on a part of the lucrative tea-trade. This resulted in the cosmopolitan nature of the town, with people from many parts of the country settling there. Business boomed and the town established itself as the premier commercial and cultural hub of the northern Bengal Region. It also helped that the town was well connected with Kolkata (then Calcutta), as it lay on the main Railway link between Calcutta and Darjeeling.
posted by Pavan Gupta at 12:54 PM
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