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Port of Kolkata
The Port of Kolkata, officially Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (SPMP or SMP, Kolkata), is the only riverine major port in India, in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, around 203 kilometres (126 mi) from the sea. It is the oldest operating port in India and was constructed by the British East India Company. Kolkata is a freshwater port with no variation in salinity. The port has two distinct dock systems – Kolkata Dock System and Haldia Dock Complex.
In the 19th century, the Kolkata Port was the premier port in British India. From 1838 to 1917, the British used this port to ship off over half a million Indians from all over India – mostly from the Bhojpur and Awadh — and take them to places across the world, such as Latin America and Africa as indentured labourers. After independence, the port's importance decreased because of factors including the Partition of Bengal (1947), reduction in the size of the port hinterland, and economic stagnation in eastern India.
It has a vast hinterland comprising the entire North East of India including West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, North East Hill States and two landlocked neighbouring countries namely, Nepal and Bhutan and also the Autonomous Region of Tibet (China). With the turn of the 21st century, the volume of throughput has again started increasing steadily. As of March 2018, the port is capable of processing annually 650,000 containers, mostly from Nepal, Bhutan, and India's northeastern states.
In the early 16th century, Since the arrival of the Portuguese, who established the first European contact with Bengal, customs duties collected from trading settlements upstream of the Hooghly River heralded a change in the navigational system of the Ganges. The prosperous Saptagram port at the confluence of the Saraswati and Bhagirathi River was becoming increasingly impassable for ocean-going cargo ships. At this time, the Portuguese first used the present location of the port to anchor their ships, since they found the upper reaches of the Hooghly river, beyond Kolkata, unsafe for navigation. By the end of the 16th century, large Portuguese ships were anchored in Betor. Betor was a place on the outskirts of Kolkata. From Saptagram (Santgao) the goods were ferried by small ships and loaded onto larger ships. In 1570 AD, the Portuguese shifted their trading post from Saptagram to Hooghly, a few miles downstream. Soon Saptagram was replaced by Hooghly as the sea outlet of the region. Hooghly maintained its importance throughout the 17th century. A few decades later, after the Portuguese were driven out by the Mughals in 1632 AD, the Dutch and the English established their trading posts here. But, the trade of Hooghly further downstream, especially as far as Sutanuti and Gobindpur, encouraged the expansion of smaller trading centers and settlements into larger scale activities.
Kolkata was a small river port inhabited by weavers and artisans before it was developed as a center for maritime trade by the British East India Company. The port on the Hooghly shore acted as a catalyst in the transformation of the city of Kolkata from a small weaving settlement to a major center of maritime trade in East India. Job Charnock, an employee and administrator of the British East India Company, is believed to have founded a trading post at the site in 1690. Even before settling in Kolkata, the British knew that among the navigable areas of the Hooghly River, the deepest water area is along the eastern bank from Gobindpur to Garden Reach and was easily navigable by large sea-going vessels. Since the area was situated on the river with jungle on three sides, it was considered safe from enemy invasion. From the mid-eighteenth century the growth of Kolkata's port was accelerated by the decline of the Mughal-era major ports of Hooghly on Hooghly River and Surat on the western coast.
In the early colonial period, the main purpose of the port administration under the company's naval office, headed by a master attendant, was to provide pilotage services to ocean-going vessels. The Master Attendant also regularly conducted river surveys to report on the navigability of the river. The port's lack of docking facilities became a particular concern from the mid-eighteenth century, as ships were taken to Bombay for repairs. In 1790, the first dock was built near Bankshall Ghat. Already in 1781, Colonel Watson was granted a site on the southern boundary of the harbor to build a floating dock. Watson set up a marine yard at Kiddirpor and also began construction of a floating dock in 1781, but was forced to abandon the project when legal disputes arose. Watson subsequently turned to shipyards and built a small number of ships before his retirement from the business. After Watson several steps were taken to establish shipbuilding factories in Kolkata, but none of them were comparable to the shipbuilding activities of Parsi Enterprises in Bombay.
In the 1820s, several plans were made to build floating docks in Kolkata and Diamond Harbour, but none of them materialised. When the disastrous cyclone of 1842 caused extensive damage to ships anchored in Kolkata harbour, the issue of dock construction came into discussion again. But modernization of the Port of Kolkata was overshadowed by a failed attempt to establish a new port (Port canning) on Matla River in the 1860s. Port canning scheme is formulated from an alternative thought of the entrepreneurs. From a business point of view, they believed that river silting problems would lead to the premature death of the Port of Kolkata, just as the Port of Saptagram on the Hooghly River had died three hundred years earlier. But Kolkata became a very important city for the British, so they abandoned the plan to establish a port on Matla River. To bring more efficiency to the management of the Port of Kolkata, the government was active in setting up the Port Trust, which provided a solid base for the British Empire's trade in India.
After slavery was abolished in 1833, there was a high demand for labourers on sugar cane plantations in the British Empire. From 1838 to 1917, the British used this port to ship off over half a million Indians from all over India – mostly from the Hindi Belt (especially Bhojpur and Awadh) — and take them to places across the world, such as Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, and other Caribbean islands as indentured labourers. There are millions of Indo-Mauritians, Indo-Fijians, and Indo-Caribbean people in the world today.
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Port of Kolkata
The Port of Kolkata, officially Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (SPMP or SMP, Kolkata), is the only riverine major port in India, in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, around 203 kilometres (126 mi) from the sea. It is the oldest operating port in India and was constructed by the British East India Company. Kolkata is a freshwater port with no variation in salinity. The port has two distinct dock systems – Kolkata Dock System and Haldia Dock Complex.
In the 19th century, the Kolkata Port was the premier port in British India. From 1838 to 1917, the British used this port to ship off over half a million Indians from all over India – mostly from the Bhojpur and Awadh — and take them to places across the world, such as Latin America and Africa as indentured labourers. After independence, the port's importance decreased because of factors including the Partition of Bengal (1947), reduction in the size of the port hinterland, and economic stagnation in eastern India.
It has a vast hinterland comprising the entire North East of India including West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, North East Hill States and two landlocked neighbouring countries namely, Nepal and Bhutan and also the Autonomous Region of Tibet (China). With the turn of the 21st century, the volume of throughput has again started increasing steadily. As of March 2018, the port is capable of processing annually 650,000 containers, mostly from Nepal, Bhutan, and India's northeastern states.
In the early 16th century, Since the arrival of the Portuguese, who established the first European contact with Bengal, customs duties collected from trading settlements upstream of the Hooghly River heralded a change in the navigational system of the Ganges. The prosperous Saptagram port at the confluence of the Saraswati and Bhagirathi River was becoming increasingly impassable for ocean-going cargo ships. At this time, the Portuguese first used the present location of the port to anchor their ships, since they found the upper reaches of the Hooghly river, beyond Kolkata, unsafe for navigation. By the end of the 16th century, large Portuguese ships were anchored in Betor. Betor was a place on the outskirts of Kolkata. From Saptagram (Santgao) the goods were ferried by small ships and loaded onto larger ships. In 1570 AD, the Portuguese shifted their trading post from Saptagram to Hooghly, a few miles downstream. Soon Saptagram was replaced by Hooghly as the sea outlet of the region. Hooghly maintained its importance throughout the 17th century. A few decades later, after the Portuguese were driven out by the Mughals in 1632 AD, the Dutch and the English established their trading posts here. But, the trade of Hooghly further downstream, especially as far as Sutanuti and Gobindpur, encouraged the expansion of smaller trading centers and settlements into larger scale activities.
Kolkata was a small river port inhabited by weavers and artisans before it was developed as a center for maritime trade by the British East India Company. The port on the Hooghly shore acted as a catalyst in the transformation of the city of Kolkata from a small weaving settlement to a major center of maritime trade in East India. Job Charnock, an employee and administrator of the British East India Company, is believed to have founded a trading post at the site in 1690. Even before settling in Kolkata, the British knew that among the navigable areas of the Hooghly River, the deepest water area is along the eastern bank from Gobindpur to Garden Reach and was easily navigable by large sea-going vessels. Since the area was situated on the river with jungle on three sides, it was considered safe from enemy invasion. From the mid-eighteenth century the growth of Kolkata's port was accelerated by the decline of the Mughal-era major ports of Hooghly on Hooghly River and Surat on the western coast.
In the early colonial period, the main purpose of the port administration under the company's naval office, headed by a master attendant, was to provide pilotage services to ocean-going vessels. The Master Attendant also regularly conducted river surveys to report on the navigability of the river. The port's lack of docking facilities became a particular concern from the mid-eighteenth century, as ships were taken to Bombay for repairs. In 1790, the first dock was built near Bankshall Ghat. Already in 1781, Colonel Watson was granted a site on the southern boundary of the harbor to build a floating dock. Watson set up a marine yard at Kiddirpor and also began construction of a floating dock in 1781, but was forced to abandon the project when legal disputes arose. Watson subsequently turned to shipyards and built a small number of ships before his retirement from the business. After Watson several steps were taken to establish shipbuilding factories in Kolkata, but none of them were comparable to the shipbuilding activities of Parsi Enterprises in Bombay.
In the 1820s, several plans were made to build floating docks in Kolkata and Diamond Harbour, but none of them materialised. When the disastrous cyclone of 1842 caused extensive damage to ships anchored in Kolkata harbour, the issue of dock construction came into discussion again. But modernization of the Port of Kolkata was overshadowed by a failed attempt to establish a new port (Port canning) on Matla River in the 1860s. Port canning scheme is formulated from an alternative thought of the entrepreneurs. From a business point of view, they believed that river silting problems would lead to the premature death of the Port of Kolkata, just as the Port of Saptagram on the Hooghly River had died three hundred years earlier. But Kolkata became a very important city for the British, so they abandoned the plan to establish a port on Matla River. To bring more efficiency to the management of the Port of Kolkata, the government was active in setting up the Port Trust, which provided a solid base for the British Empire's trade in India.
After slavery was abolished in 1833, there was a high demand for labourers on sugar cane plantations in the British Empire. From 1838 to 1917, the British used this port to ship off over half a million Indians from all over India – mostly from the Hindi Belt (especially Bhojpur and Awadh) — and take them to places across the world, such as Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, and other Caribbean islands as indentured labourers. There are millions of Indo-Mauritians, Indo-Fijians, and Indo-Caribbean people in the world today.