Chapter 8 — West Bengal

West Bengal lies in the eastern part of India, stretching like a narrow band from the snow-clad Himalaya in the north to the mangrove swamps and the Bay of Bengal in the south. Its shape is often compared to a bottle or a fish: broad in the middle, narrow at the neck in the north near Siliguri and at the tail in the south.

Astronomical extent. The state extends from about 21°38' N to 27°10' N latitude and from about 85°50' E to 89°50' E longitude. The Tropic of Cancer (23°30' N) passes through the middle of the state, through Purulia, Bankura, Bardhaman and Nadia, so the southern half lies in the tropical zone and the northern half in the sub-tropical zone. The state is about 600 km long from north to south and about 300 km at its widest from east to west; the neck near Chopra in Uttar Dinajpur is only about 9 km wide, the famous chicken's neck that connects the north-eastern states to the rest of India.

Area and rank. West Bengal has an area of 88,752 square kilometres, about 2.7 per cent of India's area, ranking thirteenth among the states by size. But it holds over 9 crore people, about 7.5 per cent of India's population, ranking fourth, and its population density of about 1,028 persons per square kilometre is the second highest among the states after Bihar.

Boundaries. West Bengal is the only state of India that borders three countries and touches both the Himalaya and the sea. In the north lie Sikkim and the kingdom of Bhutan; in the north-west the Darjeeling hills touch Nepal; in the east the longest boundary, over 2,200 km, is with Bangladesh, formed at partition in 1947 along the Radcliffe line; in the north-east lies Assam; in the west the states of Bihar and Jharkhand; in the south-west Odisha; and in the south the Bay of Bengal, with a coastline of about 158 km from the Subarnarekha mouth to the Sundarbans.

Importance of the location. The state is the gateway between mainland India and the north-east, and between India and Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Kolkata, once the capital of British India, is still the largest city and port of eastern India. The Siliguri corridor carries every road and railway to the north-east. The long river frontier with Bangladesh brings both trade and problems of migration and smuggling. The Himalayan border with Nepal and Bhutan gives tea, timber and tourism. The coast gives the port of Haldia, the fisheries of Digha and the forests of the Sundarbans.

Administrative divisions. Kolkata is the capital. The state is divided into five divisions — Jalpaiguri, Malda, Bardhaman, Presidency and Medinipur — and 23 districts, from Cooch Behar and Alipurduar in the north to Purba Medinipur and South 24 Parganas in the south. South 24 Parganas is the largest district by area and Kolkata the smallest.

Though small, West Bengal contains almost every kind of landform found in India: high mountains, foothills, an old plateau fringe, a vast alluvial plain and a marshy coast. Geographers divide the state into five physical regions: the Darjeeling Himalaya, the Terai and Duars, the western plateau and highlands, the Ganga delta plain and the coastal plain with the Sundarbans.

The Darjeeling Himalaya occupies the northern part of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts, about 3,000 square kilometres. It is the only mountainous region of the state and is part of the Eastern Himalaya. From the plains at Siliguri (about 120 m) the land rises within 50 km to more than 3,000 m. The highest peak is Sandakphu (3,636 m) on the Singalila ridge, which forms the border with Nepal; from it one can see Kanchenjunga, Everest, Makalu and Lhotse. Other peaks are Phalut (3,600 m), Sabargram and Tonglu.

Structure. The region has three ranges. The Singalila range runs north-south along the Nepal border. The Darjeeling–Kurseong range in the centre carries the towns of Darjeeling (2,042 m), Ghum (2,258 m, the highest railway station of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway) and Kurseong. The Kalimpong–Dow hill range lies east of the Teesta, with Kalimpong at about 1,250 m and Rishila (3,130 m). The mighty Teesta cuts the region into two halves through a deep gorge; the Rangit joins it at Triveni, and the Mahananda, Balason and Jaldhaka also rise here.

The rocks are metamorphic — Darjeeling gneiss, schist and phyllite — folded and fractured during the Himalayan uplift and deeply weathered by heavy rain. This makes the slopes unstable and landslides common, especially along the Hill Cart Road and around Tindharia and Paglajhora.

Climate and vegetation. The hills are cool and very wet: Darjeeling has a mean temperature of about 12 °C and receives over 300 cm of rain, with snow on Sandakphu in winter. Vegetation changes with height: sal and bamboo below 1,000 m, oak, chestnut and magnolia in the middle, and pine, fir, rhododendron and juniper above 2,500 m, with alpine meadows on Sandakphu. The Singalila and Neora Valley national parks protect the red panda.

Economy. The region is famous for tea: about 87 gardens on the slopes between 600 and 2,000 m produce the Darjeeling tea that carries a geographical indication. Oranges of Kalimpong and Mirik, cardamom, cinchona at Mungpoo (India's first quinine plantation, 1862) and ginger are the other crops. Tourism to Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Mirik and Sandakphu is the second pillar, served by the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999. Hydroelectricity is generated at Rammam and Jaldhaka, and small pumped-storage and canal schemes on the Teesta.

The Terai and Duars. At the foot of the Darjeeling Himalaya lies a belt of gently sloping land, 20 to 40 km wide, built of gravel, sand and silt that the hill rivers have dumped as they leave the mountains. The western part, in Darjeeling and Uttar Dinajpur districts west of the Teesta, is the Terai; the eastern part, in Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar east of the Teesta, is the Duars, a word meaning doors, because the passes into Bhutan open through it. The land slopes from about 300 m at the foot of the hills to about 80 m at the southern edge. The upper belt of coarse gravel, called the bhabar, absorbs the streams, which reappear lower down in a marshy, spring-fed zone. The region is crossed by the Teesta, Jaldhaka, Torsa, Raidak, Sankosh and Kaljani, all swift, braided and prone to sudden floods when rain falls in the hills. Because of the heavy rain (over 300 cm) and fertile new alluvium the Duars is the second great tea region of the state, with more than 150 large gardens around Malbazar, Nagrakata and Birpara. Sal and teak forests, once malarial jungle, survive in the Gorumara and Jaldapara national parks and the Buxa tiger reserve, home to the one-horned rhinoceros and the elephant. Rice, jute and pineapples grow on the cleared land, and Cooch Behar, once a princely state, is the chief town of the plain.

The western plateau and highlands. The western districts of Purulia, western Bankura, western Bardhaman (Asansol–Durgapur), western Birbhum and parts of Paschim Medinipur and Jhargram belong to the eastern fringe of the Chota Nagpur plateau. This is the oldest land in the state, made of Archaean granite and gneiss with Gondwana sandstone and coal in the Raniganj basin. The land is a rolling, undulating plain of low relief, 150 to 300 m high, sloping gently east and south-east, broken by isolated hills. The highest is Gorgaburu (677 m) in the Ayodhya hills of Purulia; other hills are Baghmundi, Panchet and Biharinath (448 m) in Bankura and Susunia (440 m). Rivers such as the Damodar, Ajay, Kangsabati, Silabati, Dwarakeswar and Subarnarekha flow east across it in wide sandy beds that are almost dry in summer and full in the rains.

The soil is thin, red and lateritic, poor in humus and quickly leached; the rain is 110 to 140 cm but falls in a few months and runs off the hard ground, so drought is frequent. Sal, palash, mahua and kendu make the dry deciduous forest, home to the tribal Santhal, Munda and Kurmi communities. Agriculture is a single rain-fed crop of aus or aman rice, with millets, pulses and oilseeds; irrigation from the Kangsabati and Mayurakshi reservoirs has changed the eastern parts. The region's wealth is underground: the Raniganj coal, the fireclay, china clay and building stone of Bankura and Birbhum, and the Damodar valley industries of Asansol, Durgapur and Burnpur. Bishnupur's terracotta temples and Susunia's rock inscriptions record an old civilisation, and the Ayodhya hills now hold the Purulia pumped-storage power station.

The Ganga delta plain is the heart of West Bengal, covering more than half of the state from Malda in the north to the Sundarbans in the south, and from the plateau fringe in the west to the Bangladesh border in the east. It is built entirely of alluvium laid down by the Ganga and its distributaries over millions of years, and is one of the flattest and most fertile lands on earth: the slope is less than 10 cm per kilometre, and from Malda to the sea, some 400 km, the land drops only about 30 m.

The plain is divided into sub-regions. The North Bengal plain of Malda, Dinajpur and Cooch Behar, north of the Ganga, is crossed by the Mahananda and its tributaries and has two old alluvial tracts, the Barind of Malda and Dinajpur, a slightly raised, reddish, older terrace, and the Tal, the low marshy land along the Ganga in Malda, and the Diara, the new char land of the river. South of the Ganga, the Rarh plain lies between the Bhagirathi and the plateau, in Murshidabad, Birbhum, Bardhaman, Bankura and Medinipur, with older alluvium and lateritic patches, drained by the Ajay, Damodar, Mayurakshi and Rupnarayan. East of the Bhagirathi is the Bagri or true delta of Nadia, Murshidabad and the 24 Parganas, threaded by dying distributaries such as the Jalangi, Churni, Mathabhanga and Ichhamati.

Geographers also classify the delta by age. The moribund or dead delta of Nadia and Murshidabad has channels that the Ganga has abandoned since it shifted east to the Padma; they are silted, sluggish and full of weeds. The mature delta of Kolkata, Howrah and the northern 24 Parganas is fully formed, above tide level and densely settled. The active delta of the southern 24 Parganas and the Sundarbans is still being built, flooded by tides and laced with creeks.

The plain's soil is deep alluvium, renewed by floods in the north and west and salty in the south, and it supports the densest rural population in India, growing rice, jute, potato, wheat, pulses and vegetables on almost every field. Every large town of the state except Darjeeling and Siliguri stands on it.

The coastal plain and the Sundarbans. Along the Bay of Bengal, from the mouth of the Subarnarekha in Purba Medinipur to the Hooghly estuary and beyond, lies a low, flat coastal belt of sand dunes, tidal flats and reclaimed marsh. In Medinipur the coast is sandy with a straight shoreline and a beach at Digha, and dunes up to 10 m high; behind it lie brackish ponds and salt pans, and rice and betel-vine gardens on the reclaimed land around Contai and Tamluk. East of the Hooghly the coast dissolves into the Sundarbans, the largest delta and largest mangrove forest in the world, of which about 9,600 square kilometres lie in India and the rest in Bangladesh. It is a maze of 102 islands, of which 54 are inhabited, separated by tidal rivers — the Hooghly, Saptamukhi, Thakuran, Matla, Bidyadhari, Gosaba, Raimangal and Harinbhanga — flooded twice a day by tides that rise 3 to 5 m. The mangroves, named after the sundari tree, stand on breathing roots in the salt mud; the Royal Bengal tiger, estuarine crocodile, spotted deer and olive ridley turtle live here, and the Sundarbans National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a tiger reserve. About 45 lakh people live on the inhabited islands behind earthen embankments, growing a single crop of rice and catching fish, crab and honey, and every cyclone — Aila in 2009, Amphan in 2020 — breaches the embankments and salts the fields. The region is sinking slowly and the sea is rising, so islands such as Lohachara and Ghoramara have already disappeared.

West Bengal is a land of rivers; hardly any district lacks a large one. The rivers are grouped into three systems: the Ganga–Bhagirathi–Hooghly and its distributaries; the rivers of North Bengal that come down from the Himalaya; and the rivers of the western plateau that flow east into the Bhagirathi–Hooghly.

The Ganga. The Ganga enters West Bengal from Jharkhand near Rajmahal and flows south-east through Malda and Murshidabad. At Farakka in Murshidabad it splits into two. The main channel, now called the Padma, continues south-east into Bangladesh, where it meets the Brahmaputra (Jamuna) and reaches the sea as the Meghna. The right-hand distributary, the Bhagirathi, flows south through Murshidabad, Nadia, Bardhaman and Hooghly; below Nabadwip (or, in older usage, below Hooghly town) it is called the Hooghly, and it enters the Bay of Bengal at Sagar Island after a course of about 500 km. Kolkata, Howrah, Chandannagar, Serampore, Hooghly, Kalna, Nabadwip, Berhampore and Murshidabad all stand on it; it is the state's lifeline, its port channel and its sacred river.

The Farakka barrage. Since the Ganga shifted its main flow eastward into the Padma two centuries ago, the Bhagirathi has received too little water in the dry season and silt has choked the Hooghly, threatening Kolkata port. The Farakka barrage, 2,245 m long, completed in 1975, diverts up to 40,000 cusecs of Ganga water through a 38 km feeder canal into the Bhagirathi to flush the Hooghly. It also carries the road and railway to North Bengal. The sharing of Ganga water at Farakka is governed by the 1996 treaty with Bangladesh.

Distributaries of the Bhagirathi–Hooghly. East of the Bhagirathi the old delta is threaded by its former channels: the Bhairab and Jalangi in Murshidabad and Nadia, which join to meet the Bhagirathi at Nabadwip; the Mathabhanga, which splits into the Churni and the Ichhamati, the latter forming part of the border with Bangladesh; and in the south the Bidyadhari, Piyali and Matla, tidal creeks now used for Kolkata's drainage. These are the moribund rivers, silted and sluggish, revived only in the monsoon.

The Hooghly estuary. Below Diamond Harbour the river widens into an estuary 20 to 30 km wide with sandbanks and shifting channels — the James and Mary sands and the Balari bar — that make navigation difficult; ships must be piloted and dredged channels maintained. Haldia dock, 100 km below Kolkata on the west bank, was built in 1977 because large ships could no longer reach Kolkata. The tidal bore (baan) races up the river on spring tides, and the estuary receives the Damodar, Rupnarayan and Haldi from the west.

The river system is the reason for West Bengal's fertility, its water transport, its jute mills lining both banks for 60 km from Naihati to Budge Budge, its fisheries and its floods; it is also the state's most polluted water, receiving Kolkata's sewage, for which the Ganga Action Plan was launched at Kolkata in 1986.

Rivers of North Bengal. The rivers north of the Ganga rise in the Himalaya of Sikkim, Darjeeling and Bhutan and rush south across the Terai and Duars with steep gradients, heavy loads of gravel and sand, braided channels and sudden floods. They are snow-fed as well as rain-fed and so are perennial.

• The Teesta is the largest, about 315 km long. It rises from the Zemu glacier below Kanchenjunga in Sikkim, receives the Rangit at Triveni, cuts a deep gorge through the Darjeeling Himalaya, leaves the hills at Sevoke below the Coronation bridge, and then swings south-east across Jalpaiguri into Bangladesh, where it joins the Brahmaputra. Until the great flood of 1787 it flowed south into the Ganga. The Teesta barrage at Gajoldoba in Jalpaiguri, begun in 1976, irrigates the Terai and Duars and generates power; the sharing of its water with Bangladesh is still disputed.
• The Jaldhaka rises in the Bhutan–Sikkim border near the Jelep La, forms part of the Bhutan border, has a hydroelectric station at Jhalong, and enters Bangladesh as the Dharla.
• The Torsa (Amo Chhu in Tibet and Bhutan) enters India near Phuentsholing, flows past Cooch Behar and joins the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh. Raidak, Sankosh, Kaljani and Dyna are its neighbours in the Duars.
• The Mahananda rises in the Darjeeling hills near Kurseong, flows past Siliguri, forms part of the Bangladesh border and joins the Ganga in Malda. Its tributaries the Balason, Mechi (the Nepal border) and Kulik drain the Terai; the Atrai and Punarbhaba drain Dinajpur.

Rivers of the western plateau. These rise on the Chota Nagpur plateau of Jharkhand or its West Bengal fringe and flow east or south-east into the Bhagirathi–Hooghly. They are rain-fed, almost dry from November to May and violent in the monsoon, and they carry sand rather than silt.

• The Damodar, about 592 km, rises in the Palamau hills of Jharkhand, receives the Barakar at Dishergarh, enters West Bengal near Asansol, flows east past Durgapur and Bardhaman, and turns south near Jamalpur to join the Hooghly at Falta below Kolkata. Its floods earned it the name sorrow of Bengal; the DVC dams and the Durgapur barrage now control it, and its valley is the state's industrial heart. The Mundeswari is its southern branch.
• The Ajay rises near Deoghar, forms the Birbhum–Bardhaman border and joins the Bhagirathi at Katwa.
• The Mayurakshi rises at Trikut hill near Deoghar, is dammed at Massanjore (Canada dam, 1955) and at Tilpara barrage near Suri, and joins the Bhagirathi in Murshidabad; the Bakreswar, Kopai and Brahmani are its tributaries.
• The Rupnarayan is formed by the union of the Dwarakeswar and the Silabati at Ghatal and joins the Hooghly at Geonkhali; Tamluk and Kolaghat stand on it.
• The Kangsabati (Kasai) rises in the Ayodhya hills of Purulia, is dammed at Mukutmanipur, flows past Midnapore and joins the Haldi, which with the Keleghai enters the Hooghly at Haldia.
• The Subarnarekha, rising near Ranchi, cuts across Jhargram and Purba Medinipur and enters the sea in Odisha; gold was once washed from its sands, hence the name.

The Bakreswar hot springs of Birbhum and the Massanjore and Mukutmanipur reservoirs are the tourist spots of these river valleys.

West Bengal has a tropical monsoon climate with hot wet summers, a heavy monsoon and mild dry winters, modified in the north by the Himalaya and in the south by the sea. Because the state stretches over five and a half degrees of latitude and 3,600 m of height, it also has great local variety, from the snows of Sandakphu to the sultry heat of the delta.

Factors. The Tropic of Cancer runs through the middle, so the sun is overhead in summer and the plains are hot. The Himalaya blocks the cold winds of Central Asia in winter and forces the monsoon winds to rise and rain on the northern districts. The Bay of Bengal supplies moisture, moderates the coastal temperature and breeds the depressions and cyclones that bring much of the rain. Height lowers the temperature of the hills by about 6 °C per 1,000 m.

The four seasons.

• Summer (March–May). Temperatures rise from March; May is the hottest month, with 38–40 °C in Purulia and Bankura, 35–36 °C in Kolkata and about 18 °C in Darjeeling. The heat of the plateau creates low pressure that draws in moist south-westerly sea breezes, and the meeting of hot dry and moist air brings the Kalbaishakhi or Nor'wester: violent afternoon thunderstorms with squalls of 60–100 km per hour, hail and 20–50 mm of rain, coming from the north-west in April and May. They damage crops and houses but cool the air and give water for aus paddy and jute.
• Rainy season (June–September). The south-west monsoon, entering from the Bay of Bengal as the Bay branch, reaches the coast in the first week of June and the hills within days. The winds strike the Himalaya and the northern districts get the most rain; depressions moving north-west from the Bay bring spells of heavy rain to the delta. About 75–80 per cent of the annual rain falls in these four months, the humidity is above 85 per cent and the temperature about 30 °C. Floods are the danger of this season.
• Autumn or retreating monsoon (October–November). The monsoon withdraws by mid-October; the sky clears, the humidity drops and the harvest of aman rice begins. But the Bay of Bengal is still warm, and cyclones born in it strike the coast in October and November, as Bulbul did in 2019.
• Winter (December–February). The north-east monsoon or trade winds blow from land to sea and the season is dry, sunny and pleasant, with January the coldest month: 12–14 °C minimum in Kolkata, 4–5 °C in Purulia and near freezing in Darjeeling, with snow on the high ridges. Occasional western disturbances give a little rain and fog to the northern districts, which is good for the rabi wheat and potato crops.

Distribution of rainfall. The average is about 175 cm but the range is enormous. The Darjeeling hills, the Terai and the Duars receive 300–400 cm (Buxa over 400 cm); the Sundarbans coast about 180–200 cm; Kolkata about 160 cm; the central delta 130–150 cm; and the western plateau fringe of Purulia and Bankura only 110–130 cm, unevenly spread, so that it is the drought zone of the state. Rainfall thus decreases from north to south and from east to west.

Soils. The soils of West Bengal follow its physical divisions closely, since they are formed from the rocks and alluvium beneath and shaped by the climate above.

• Mountain soil of the Darjeeling Himalaya is thin, stony and acidic, rich in humus from the forests, well drained on the slopes; it suits tea, oranges, cardamom and potatoes but erodes easily.
• Terai and Duars soil is coarse, sandy and gravelly at the foot of the hills, finer and richer lower down, acidic and very fertile because it is renewed by the hill rivers; tea, rice, jute and pineapple grow on it.
• Laterite and red soil of Purulia, Bankura, western Bardhaman, Birbhum and Jhargram is formed by the leaching of the plateau rocks under alternate wet and dry seasons; it is red or brown from iron oxide, hard, gravelly, poor in nitrogen, phosphorus and humus, and holds little water, so it gives only one rain-fed crop unless manured and irrigated.
• Alluvial soil of the Ganga delta is the most widespread and the most fertile. The older alluvium (bhangar) of the Barind and the Rarh is slightly raised, clayey and sometimes calcareous; the newer alluvium (khadar) of the flood plains and chars is renewed every year and grows rice, jute, wheat, potato, sugarcane and vegetables in abundance.
• Coastal and saline soil of the Sundarbans and the Medinipur coast is clayey, heavy and salty from tidal flooding; it grows a single crop of salt-tolerant rice, and after cyclones it may lie useless for years.
• Peaty and marshy soil occurs in the wetlands of the Sundarbans and in the swamps of the delta, black, waterlogged and rich in organic matter.

Natural vegetation. West Bengal has about 16,900 square kilometres of forest, roughly 19 per cent of its area, concentrated in the north and the south-west and the far south. The forest types follow rainfall and height.

• Himalayan forests change with altitude: tropical moist deciduous sal, teak and bamboo up to 1,000 m; sub-tropical wet hill forest of chestnut, oak, alder and magnolia from 1,000 to 2,000 m; temperate forest of oak, maple, laurel, pine and rhododendron from 2,000 to 3,000 m; and above that conifers — fir, spruce, juniper — and alpine meadows on the Singalila ridge. Cinchona, cardamom and orchids are its special products.
• Terai and Duars forests are dense moist deciduous jungles of sal, teak, khair, sissoo and simul with tall elephant grass, preserved in Gorumara, Jaldapara, Chapramari and Buxa.
• Dry deciduous forests of the western plateau fringe are open woods of sal, palash, mahua, kendu, arjun and bamboo that shed their leaves in the hot dry months; sal from the Jhargram and Bankura forests is the timber of these districts, and kendu leaves and mahua flowers are gathered by tribal people. Social forestry has covered the laterite waste with eucalyptus and acacia.
• Delta plain vegetation is almost entirely cleared for farming; what remains is village groves of mango, jackfruit, coconut, palm, bamboo and banana, and water plants in the wetlands.
• Mangrove or tidal forests of the Sundarbans are evergreen, salt-tolerant trees standing on stilt and breathing roots (pneumatophores) that rise from the mud: sundari, gewa, garan, goran, keora, hental and the golpata palm. They break storm surges, trap silt, shelter fish and honey bees, and give the poles, firewood and honey on which many islanders live.

Wildlife follows the forest: the tiger and crocodile of the Sundarbans, the rhino and elephant of the Duars, the red panda of Singalila and the wolf and deer of the western forests, protected in six national parks and fifteen sanctuaries.

Agriculture is the largest occupation of West Bengal, supporting about 60 per cent of its people directly or indirectly, and the state is one of the most intensively cultivated in India: about 65 per cent of its land is sown and much of that is cropped twice or thrice a year. The fertile alluvium, the abundant monsoon, the long warm growing season and the huge rural labour force are its advantages; tiny fragmented holdings, floods, drought in the west and salinity in the south are its problems.

Rice is the food and the first crop of Bengal, grown on about 55 lakh hectares, more than half of all cropped land, and the state is the largest rice producer in India, with about 15 million tonnes a year. Rice needs a temperature of 20–35 °C, 100–200 cm of rain or standing water in the field, and heavy clayey alluvium. Three crops are grown: aus, sown in April–May with the Kalbaishakhi rain and harvested in August–September, short-duration and coarse; aman, the main winter crop, sown or transplanted in June–July with the monsoon and harvested in November–December, about 70 per cent of the total; and boro, the summer crop, transplanted in December–January on irrigated land and harvested in April–May, with the highest yields because of high-yielding varieties, fertiliser and tube-well water. Bardhaman is the granary of West Bengal; Hooghly, Birbhum, Medinipur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Bankura and the 24 Parganas are the other leading districts.

Jute, the golden fibre, is the chief cash crop. West Bengal grows about 75 per cent of India's jute, mostly in the moist delta districts of Nadia, Murshidabad, North 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Malda, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri. Jute needs 25–35 °C, 150–250 cm of rain, high humidity, well-drained new alluvium, and plenty of clean standing water for retting, the soaking of the cut stalks for two to three weeks until the fibre can be stripped. It is sown in March–April and cut in July–August, in rotation with aman rice. The fibre is spun and woven in the jute mills along the Hooghly into sacks, hessian, carpet backing and now bags and fabrics.

Tea is the crop of the hills and the Duars. It needs 15–30 °C, 200–400 cm of well-spread rain, high humidity, sloping well-drained land because the bush cannot stand water at its roots, and cheap skilled labour to pluck two leaves and a bud every week. Darjeeling's 87 gardens grow the world's finest orthodox tea on slopes up to 2,000 m; the Duars and Terai gardens of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Darjeeling plains grow strong CTC tea for the Indian market. West Bengal is India's second tea state after Assam, with about a quarter of the national crop.

Other crops. Potato, a winter crop of Hooghly, Bardhaman, Bankura and Medinipur, makes West Bengal India's second producer after Uttar Pradesh, with cold stores in every town. Wheat grows in Murshidabad, Nadia, Malda and Birbhum in the cool winter. Oilseeds — mustard and rapeseed in the delta, sesame in the west — pulses such as masur and khesari, sugarcane in Nadia and Murshidabad, maize in Malda, tobacco in Cooch Behar, and vegetables around Kolkata are grown widely. Among fruits, Malda and Murshidabad grow the famous mangoes, the Darjeeling hills oranges, and the Duars pineapples; betel vine grows on the Medinipur coast, and the state leads India in fish farming in its ponds and bheris. The Green Revolution came late but the boro rice and potato revolution of the 1980s with tube-well irrigation made the state a food-surplus one.

Irrigation. Though the monsoon is generous, it falls in four months, so the winter and summer crops — boro rice, wheat, potato, oilseeds — depend on irrigation, and the western districts need it even for aman. About 60 per cent of the net sown area is irrigated. Canals come from the multipurpose projects: the Damodar Valley canals from the Durgapur barrage water Bardhaman, Hooghly, Howrah and Bankura; the Mayurakshi project from Massanjore dam and Tilpara barrage waters Birbhum and Murshidabad; the Kangsabati project from Mukutmanipur waters Bankura, Paschim Medinipur and Hooghly; the Teesta barrage at Gajoldoba waters Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar and Uttar Dinajpur; and the Midnapore canal, the Eden canal and the Hijli tidal canal are older. Tube-wells and pumps now irrigate the largest area, especially in the Ganga plain where the water table is shallow; they made the boro revolution possible but have lowered the water table and spread arsenic. Tanks and ponds are the traditional source of Bankura, Purulia and Medinipur, where every village has its bandh. Lift irrigation from rivers and the Sundarbans sluice gates complete the picture.

Minerals. West Bengal is not rich in minerals except one — coal. The Raniganj coalfield in Paschim Bardhaman, the oldest in India (1774), with extensions into Bankura, Purulia and Birbhum, holds about 30,000 million tonnes and produces about 30 million tonnes a year, mostly non-coking coal for power and industry; Raniganj, Asansol, Jamuria, Kulti and Barakar are the mining towns. Other minerals are small: fireclay and china clay in Bankura, Birbhum and Purulia for refractories and ceramics; limestone and dolomite in Purulia, Bankura and the Jalpaiguri foothills; apatite (rock phosphate) at Beldih in Purulia; wolfram (tungsten) at Jhilimili in Bankura; copper traces in Purulia; building stone, granite and sandstone from Birbhum and Purulia; and salt from the Contai coast. Natural gas has been found in small quantities in the Ashoknagar area of North 24 Parganas and near Raniganj (coal-bed methane).

Power. West Bengal generates about 10,000 MW, almost all of it thermal from Raniganj and Jharkhand coal. The big thermal stations are Kolaghat (Purba Medinipur, 1,260 MW), Bakreswar (Birbhum, 1,050 MW), Sagardighi (Murshidabad), Santaldih (Purulia), Bandel (Hooghly), Durgapur and Mejia (DVC), Farakka (NTPC, 2,100 MW, on the Ganga), Haldia, Budge Budge, Titagarh and Southern Generating Station in Kolkata run by CESC. Hydroelectricity is small, from Jaldhaka (Jhalong) and Rammam in the Darjeeling hills and the Teesta canal falls, and the Purulia pumped storage plant (900 MW) in the Ayodhya hills, with a second one planned at Turga. Non-conventional sources are growing: solar parks at Dadanpatrabar in Purba Medinipur and on the Sagar Island, wind at Frazerganj, biomass in rice-husk plants, and the Bakreswar hot springs as a possible geothermal source. The state grid is linked to the eastern regional grid and to Bhutan's hydro exports.

West Bengal was the first industrial region of India, thanks to Kolkata port, the jute of the delta, the coal of Raniganj and the iron of the neighbouring Chota Nagpur plateau. After 1947 it lost ground to the western states, but it remains the industrial leader of eastern India, with three industrial regions: the Hooghly belt, the Damodar valley (Asansol–Durgapur) and the Haldia coastal belt, plus the tea and tourism economy of the north.

Jute industry. The jute mills, the oldest large industry of the state, line both banks of the Hooghly for about 100 km from Tribeni to Uluberia — Naihati, Bhatpara, Titagarh, Serampore, Rishra, Howrah, Budge Budge, Birlapur — because the raw jute arrives by river and rail from the delta, the port exports the sacking, the river gives water for retting and processing, coal comes from Raniganj by rail and the crowded villages give cheap labour. India's first jute mill was set up at Rishra in 1855. About 60 of India's 70 jute mills are in West Bengal, making sacks, hessian, carpet backing, twine and now jute geo-textiles and diversified products. The industry suffers from old machinery, competition from plastics and from Bangladesh, and irregular raw jute supply.

Cotton textiles are much smaller — mills at Howrah, Serampore, Sodepur, Murshidabad, Kalna and the handloom weaving of Shantipur, Phulia, Dhaniakhali and Begampur saris; silk at Murshidabad and Bishnupur (baluchari); and hosiery in Kolkata.

Iron and steel and engineering. The Damodar valley has the coal, and Jharkhand and Odisha next door have the iron ore, manganese and limestone, so steel came here early. The Burnpur (IISCO) plant at Kulti–Burnpur near Asansol dates from 1918 and has been modernised by SAIL; Durgapur Steel Plant (1959, with British help) and the Alloy Steel Plant at Durgapur make special steels. Around them are the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (1950, electric locomotives), Durgapur's Mining and Allied Machinery, Hindustan Fertiliser and cement plants, and hundreds of foundries and rolling mills in Howrah, the Sheffield of India. Kolkata–Howrah–Hooghly builds railway wagons (Jessop, Burn Standard), ships (Garden Reach Shipbuilders), electrical goods, machine tools, bicycles and motor vehicles (the Hindustan Motors plant at Uttarpara made the Ambassador car from 1957 to 2014).

Chemicals and petrochemicals. The Haldia industrial belt on the Hooghly estuary, built from 1977 around the Haldia dock and the IOC refinery, has the Haldia Petrochemicals complex (1997), fertiliser, paint, edible oil and chemical plants. Kolkata itself has pharmaceuticals (Bengal Chemicals, the first Indian pharmaceutical firm, 1901), paints, rubber, leather at Bantala, paper at Titagarh and Kankinara, and glass.

Tea and food processing. Tea factories in the Darjeeling and Duars gardens process the leaf; rice mills, cold stores for potato, flour and oil mills, fish processing at Diamond Harbour and sugar at Nadia are spread through the delta.

Information technology and services. Since the 1990s the Salt Lake Sector V and the New Town (Rajarhat) districts of Kolkata have become an IT and IT-enabled services hub with over 1,500 firms; the city is also the financial, educational, publishing and film centre of eastern India, and the port, the airport at Dum Dum and tourism to Darjeeling, Digha and the Sundarbans add service employment.

Problems and prospects. Old plants, power shortages in the past, labour disputes, the loss of the Bangladesh hinterland at partition and the silting of the port held the state back. Today Haldia, the Panagarh industrial park, the Raghunathpur steel and power hub in Purulia, IT in Rajarhat and the Asian Highway through Siliguri point to a revival.

West Bengal's flat plain, its dense population and its position as the gateway to the north-east and to Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan have given it one of the densest transport networks in India, though the rivers that make transport easy also demand expensive bridges.

Roads. The state has about 3 lakh km of roads. The Grand Trunk Road (National Highway 19, formerly NH 2), the oldest highway of India, runs from Kolkata through Bardhaman and Asansol to Delhi. NH 16 (the old NH 6) runs south-west from Kolkata through Kharagpur to Odisha and Chennai; NH 12 (old NH 34) is the spine of the state from Kolkata through Krishnanagar, Berhampore and Malda to Siliguri; NH 27 crosses the north from Siliguri through the Duars to Assam; and NH 10 climbs from Siliguri to Gangtok, NH 110 to Darjeeling. The Golden Quadrilateral and the Asian Highway 1 from Bangladesh through Petrapole and Siliguri to Nepal pass through the state. The Vidyasagar Setu (1992), India's longest cable-stayed bridge, the Howrah bridge (Rabindra Setu, 1943) and the Nivedita Setu cross the Hooghly at Kolkata; the Farakka barrage road and the Coronation bridge at Sevoke over the Teesta are the other key links. Rural roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana have joined most villages.

Railways. India's second railway line opened from Howrah to Hooghly in 1854, and the state has about 4,000 km of track, the densest in the east. Howrah is the largest railway station complex in India and with Sealdah handles over 30 lakh passengers a day; Kolkata (Chitpur) is the third terminus. Two zones serve the state: the Eastern Railway (Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol and Malda divisions) and the South Eastern Railway (Kharagpur, Adra). Main lines run Howrah–Bardhaman–Asansol to Delhi, Howrah–Kharagpur to Mumbai and Chennai, Sealdah–Ranaghat–Gede and Bangaon to Bangladesh, Sealdah–Lalgola, Howrah–Rampurhat–Malda–New Jalpaiguri to the north-east, and New Jalpaiguri–Alipurduar through the Duars. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a 2-foot narrow gauge line of 1881 that climbs 2,000 m from New Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling with loops and zigzags, is a World Heritage site. Kolkata Metro (1984) was the first underground railway in India and now runs under the Hooghly to Howrah; the Chittaranjan works builds locomotives and Kharagpur has the country's longest platform.

Waterways. The Hooghly is National Waterway 1 from Haldia to Allahabad; barges carry coal, fly ash and containers, and ferries cross the river at dozens of ghats. The Sundarbans creeks are the only roads of the islands, and NW 97 links Kolkata through them to Bangladesh under the Protocol route. Kolkata port (Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port), the oldest major port of India (1870), works on the river at Kidderpore and Garden Reach and at Haldia dock; it handles coal, petroleum, iron ore, fertiliser and containers, and serves Nepal and Bhutan as well as eastern India. Silting requires constant dredging; the proposed deep-water port at Tajpur is meant to overcome it.

Airways. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at Dum Dum, Kolkata, is the largest in eastern India and the fifth busiest in the country, with flights to South-East Asia and the Gulf. Bagdogra near Siliguri serves North Bengal, Sikkim and Bhutan; Andal (Kazi Nazrul Islam airport) near Durgapur, Cooch Behar and Malda are the smaller fields.

Communication. Kolkata is the postal, telecom and media hub of the east; the state has full mobile and internet coverage in the plains, with the Darjeeling hills and the Sundarbans islands the last to be linked.

Population. According to the 2011 census West Bengal had 9.13 crore people, 7.5 per cent of India's population on 2.7 per cent of its area, the fourth most populous state after Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar. Its density of 1,028 persons per square kilometre was second only to Bihar and nearly three times the national average of 382. Kolkata district had about 24,000 per square kilometre, North 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly over 1,700, while Darjeeling, Purulia and Jalpaiguri had 400–600 and the Sundarbans blocks under 300. The decadal growth rate of 13.8 per cent (2001–2011) was below the national 17.7 per cent, a sign of falling birth rates. The sex ratio was 950 females per 1,000 males, better than the national 943, and the literacy rate 76.3 per cent (male 81.7, female 70.5), above the national 73 per cent, with Kolkata and Purba Medinipur the most literate and Uttar Dinajpur, Malda and Purulia the least. About 68 per cent of the people live in villages and 32 per cent in towns. Bengali is the mother tongue of about 86 per cent; Hindi, Urdu, Santhali, Nepali (in the hills), Rajbanshi and Kurukh are the others. Hindus are about 70 per cent and Muslims about 27 per cent, the highest Muslim share among the large states; Scheduled Castes are 23 per cent and Scheduled Tribes 6 per cent, the tribes concentrated in Purulia, Jhargram, Bankura and the Duars.

Why the population is so dense. The fertile alluvial plain, abundant water, the three rice crops, the early growth of Kolkata and industry, and two waves of migration from East Bengal — at partition in 1947 and after the 1971 war — filled the state. High density means small farms, pressure on land, unemployment and crowded cities.

Settlements. Rural settlements are compact villages in the delta, strung along river levees and roads on the slightly higher ground, with a pond, a temple or mosque and groves of mango and bamboo; dispersed hamlets on the western plateau and in the tea gardens; and linear settlements along embankments in the Sundarbans. Urban growth is concentrated in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area, which stretches 80 km along both banks of the Hooghly from Kalyani and Bansberia to Budge Budge and Uluberia and holds about 1.5 crore people, a third of the urban population. Kolkata, Howrah, Durgapur, Asansol, Siliguri, Bardhaman, Malda, Berhampore, Kharagpur and Haldia are the other main towns. Kolkata, founded by Job Charnock in 1690 and capital of British India until 1911, is the third largest urban agglomeration of India and the cultural capital of the country.

Administrative divisions. The state is governed from Kolkata by a Legislative Assembly of 294 members and a Governor; it sends 42 members to the Lok Sabha. It is divided into five divisions and, since 2017, 23 districts: Jalpaiguri division — Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar; Malda division — Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad; Bardhaman division — Purba Bardhaman, Paschim Bardhaman, Birbhum, Hooghly; Presidency division — Nadia, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Kolkata, Howrah; Medinipur division — Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur, Jhargram, Bankura, Purulia. Districts are divided into sub-divisions and into 341 blocks, each with a panchayat samiti, under which about 3,300 gram panchayats run village government, while 125 municipalities and 7 municipal corporations run the towns. The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration handles the Darjeeling hills, and the Sundarbans Affairs Department the delta islands.