BUDGE BUDGE

'Budge Budge' (Bengali বজ বজ) is a city and a municipality in South 24 Parganas district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority.^[1]

Contents

History

Geography

Economics

Transport

Demographics

Education

Healthcare

External links

References

See also

History

Swami Vivekananda had landed at Budge Budge ferry ghat when he returned from his Chicago visit. The anniversary is still celebrated today with great zeal.
A curious feature of this small and old town is the large number of Sikhs who live here. There is an interesting history behind it. During the British Raj Sikhs were taken for forced labour to distant lands by ship. The Sikhs in one such ship revolted and managed to escape after a bloody fight and landed in Budge Budge. In memory of the deceased revolutionaries there is a tomb called Kamaghatamaru.
Budge Budge municipality is more than a century old establishment.
Historically the oldest people of this place were the 'Haldars' who came here to guard a fort near the bank of the River Ganges. A British writer who had come with Clive around 1740-50 chronicled this event. Maniklal was the main person at the fort and his soldiers lost to Clive's troops. This may have been the start of the series of Indian defeats to the expanding British colonial forces in the 18th century.

Geography

It is located in the south-western suburbs of Calcutta, on the eastern bank of the River Ganges. Over the past few years Budge Budge has developed considerably in terms of lifestyle and infrastructure. With the ongoing project of construction of 4-lane road the economic progress is expected to accelerate.
Budge Budge is located at 22.29 N, 88.11 E ^[2]

Economics

Budge Budge owes much of its importance to the oil storage and jute mills. Being close to Calcutta and on the shores of Hooghly river makes it a strategic location for oil storage and is the biggest oil storage for the metropolis Calcutta with big PSUs like BPCL, IBP, HPCL, IOC having large units there. Jute mills were the biggest employers in the area till they started falling sick. Prominent among them are New Central Jute Mill and Budge Budge Jute Mills. At their height before 1971 these jute mills used to employ thousands of workers (New Central Jute Mills has been said to have employed as many as twenty thousand people) but after the partition of India and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh, supply of raw materials for these jute mills decreased. This, along with failure of trade unions lead to the closing of most of these jute mills.
The Budge Budge thermal power plant set up by CESC in Achipur (named after a Chinese called Achhu saheb by the locals who had established a sugar cane unit there) is a major source of electricity for Kolkata and its suburbs.

Transport

The Sealdah-Budge Budge line was constructed in 1890.^[3]It is part of the Kolkata Suburban Railway system.

Demographics

As of 2001 India census,^[4] Budge Budge had a population of 75,465. Males constitute 55% of the population and females 45%. Budge Budge has an average literacy rate of 70%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; with male literacy of 75% and female literacy of 64%. 10% of the population is under 6 years of age.
The majority of the population comprises Bengali Hindus belonging to Mahishya caste. Sunni Muslims live in specific areas. Christian families live in Hindu majority localities.

Education

Apart from the century old schools (P.K. High School, Sarengabad High School, Jagweshwari Paathshaala) several English medium schools (including the St Paul's day school) have sprouted up but the quality of education is not of adequate standard and consequently, aspiring students are forced to look torwards Kolkata for better opportunities. The oldest school of this locality is Sarengabad High School. The school was established in 1856, the same year when Calcutta University was founded.

Healthcare

High levels of arsenic in ground water was found in 12 blocks of the district. Water samples collected from tubewells in the affected places contained arsenic above the normal level (10 microgram a litre as specified by the World Health Organisation). The affected blocks are Baruipur, Bhangar I, Bhangar II, Bishnupur I, Bishnupur II, Basanti, Budge Budge, Canning I, Canning II, Sonarpur, Mograhat II and Joynagar.
^[5]

External links

★ Travel article on Achipur (near Budgebudge) by Rangan Datta

References

1. Base Map of Kolkata Metroploitan area
2. Budge Budge Fire Station
3. Chaudhuri, Sukanta, ''The Railway Comes to Calcutta'', in ''Calcutta, the Living City'', Vol. I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, p. 239, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-563696-3.
4.
5. High arsenic levels in South

See also