Durgapur

Tehsil Durgapur, District Paschim Bardhman (Asansol), Bengal, Bharat.

Durgapur is a city of the state of West Bengal, located about 180 km from Kolkata. It was a dream child of the great visionary Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, the second chief minister of the state. The well laid out industrial township, designed by Joseph Allen Stein and Benjamin Polk is home to one of the largest industrial units in the state, Durgapur Steel Plant, one of the integrated steel plants of Steel Authority of India Limited. Alloy Steels Plant of SAIL and CMERI, a CSIR laboratory, are also located here. There are a number of power plants, chemical and engineering industries. Some metallurgical units have come up in recent years. National Institute of Technology (Earlier known as Durgapur Regional Engineering College), Durgapur is one of the prominent seats of Engineering and Technological Educations of the country.Mighty emperors reigned in this region over the centuries but it is difficult to pinpoint as to who exactly held sway over the area at different points of time. Historians talk of this region being a part of the Maurya and Gupta empires, the empire of Harsha Vardhan and the Mughals. Being a geographical border region, it could have been on either side of the virtually unmarked and flexible borders of the mighty empires. Moreover, the infertile soil with deep impenetrable forests and wild animals was probably not a very inviting proposal for any emperor on the look out for wealth and treasures. Even when coal mining made forays into the adjoining Asansol-Ranigunj area from the late eighteenth century, and factory chimneys reared their heads in the sky somewhat later, Durgapur remained an impenetrable jungle that few dared to trespass into.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the railway track traversed the Durgapur area but even fairly recent pre-independence travellers describe Durgapur as a small station, with dim kerosene lanterns burning at night, where only a few passenger trains stopped. It was local chieftains such as Bhabani Pathak and Ichhai Ghosh, who were the heroes of the jungle-territory, and probably held many a great emperor at bay. Many of them must have passed through the area on the look out for wealth in the famed granaries of Bengal further east but probably never found the place attractive enough to show their prowess.

It is unlikely that Bhabani Pathak of Durgapur was the same person linked with Devi Choudhurani, made famous by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Their area of activity was around Rangpur, now in Bangladesh. Although barges used to carry coal down the Damodar in those days and the river was more navigable than now, the area was never a watery haven as some areas of east or north Bengal were. However, legends have more impact on people than the hard realities of history.

The area was part of the Bardhaman Raj, who ruled on the basis of a firman from the Mughal emperor. Mir Kassem, then Nawab of Sube Bangala, ceded Bardhaman along with Medinipur and Chittagong to the East India Company in 1760 (three years after the Battle of Plassey), and the Bardhaman Raj continued to function under British tutelage.

However, there are some interesting historical points. Archeological excavations at Birbhanpur, on the bank of the Damodar, have revealed a number of stone implements. These are dated to be around 5,000 BC. Many of these are hunting implements used by pre-historic hunters. Earlier, some of the excavations at Pandu Rajar Dhibi, on the banks of the Ajay, just beyond Durgapur but in Bardhaman district, revealed traces of a civilisation possibly linked with the Indus Valley Civilisation. These are important historical finds and are yet to be fully explored.Durgapur is by far, the most industrialised city in the entire eastern India. It all started with the dreamer first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru. His dream of transforming the backward agricultural country into an industrially advanced nation was picked up in West Bengal by Dr. B.C. Roy. At the earlier stages for the selection of a proper site for a new industrial township, Jnananjan Niyogi, a great business organizer and planner, was involved. Modernist American architect [Joseph Allen Stein], invited to head the newly formed Department of Architecture and Planning at the Bengal Engineering College in Calcutta, plunged into a major project as soon as he reached India in 1952—the designing of Durgapur city along with Benjamin Polk,
Queen Elizabeth at Durgapur

another American architect already living in Calcutta at that time. Thereafter it was the task of local leaders such as Ananda Gopal Mukherjee and bureaucrats such as K.K. Sen to get Durgapur going.

Prior to independence, only one small refractory plant of the Martin Burn group was located at Durgapur, the abandoned chimney of which is still visible near the station. Damodar Valley Corporation constructed Durgapur Barrage in 1955 and shortly followed with the Durgapur Thermal Power Station.

There was a massive follow up – Durgapur Steel Plant (commissioned 1960), Alloy Steels Plant (commissioned 1965), Durgapur Projects Ltd. (established 1961), Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation, ACC-Vickers Babcock (later ACC-Babcock and now Alstom Power Boilers Ltd.), Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation, Philips Carbon Black Ltd., Sankey Wheels (a unit of GKW), Bharat Ophathalmic Glass Ltd, Durgapur Cement Ltd. (now Birla Cement) (established 1975), Graphite India Ltd. (established 1967), Durgapur Chemicals and many others. A great new industrial city was bubbling with enthusiasm.

Durgapur Steel Plant was a showpiece of Indo-British cooperation in independent India. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first president of India, came for the inauguration of the first blast furnace. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was a regular visitor. He called these plants temples of new India. Many senior leaders and important foreign leaders visited Durgapur to see and to cheer. Displaying a rare gesture of solidarity, Queen Elizabeth came on a state visit.

As the numerous chimneys merrily belched out smoke – black, white and reddish brown – as pollution control norms were still some way off (for the past few years all the 65 chimneys of Durgapur Steel Plant are pollution free), the townships grew and prospered. Regional Engineering College (established 1960) (now renamed National Institute of Technology) and Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (established 1958) added to the stature of the new township. Schools, hospitals, parks, and playgrounds – all came up.