Batanagar

Batanagar (Bengali: বাটানগর) is a city 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]It is one of the places named after the multinational shoe company Bata. There is a plant of the Bata company here. The employees mostly reside in Batanagar.

History

Batanagar was established to start the first shoe factory in India by Czech industrialist Thomas Bata. The Bata brand was established on August 24, 1894 in Zlín, Czech Republic. The company first established itself in India in 1931 and commenced manufacturing shoes in Batanagar in 1936, the first Indian operation having been established in Konnagar, West Bengal.

Later Batanagar became one of the bigger sub-urban towns near Kolkata.

Geography

Batanagar lies near the river Ganges. Nungi or Nangi, the nearest rail station, is 23 km from Sealdah on the Sealdah-Budge Budge section of Eastern Railway.

Economy

Not only the Bata India Shoe factory, another very remarkable feature of Batanagar, is that shoe-making is a pre-dominant cottage industry in Batanagar. Countless houses and families are dedicated to manufacturing shoes of various makes - leather, PVC, jute, etc for some of the leading shoe brands in India. For example - Khadim's, SreeLeathers, Liberty which are some of the most renowned shoe makers in India, have outsourced a major portion of their shoe making process to the various entities in Batanagar. Every alternate home in Batanagar houses a small unit which is manufacturing shoes.

This feature was born out of necessity, as most of the families residing in Batanagar are dependent on the Bata factory for their livelihood, hence whenever the factory gets locked-out, these families are very severely affected. Hence shoe making from their homes has given them an alternate source of earning.

Education

There are several higher secondary level schools including the Bata Boys' School, Bata Girls' School, Nangi Boys' School and Nangi Girls' School in Batanagar area. There are no college in Batanagar, the nearest colleges are Maheshtala college and Budgebudge college. Mahestala College was accredtated by NAAC in May 2004.It has Computer Science as Honours course affiliated by Calutta University. UGC funded Career Oriented Vocational courses like Journalism & Video Production, Communicative English are fast gaining popularity among students. In XI Plant one more corse on Fashion Technology will be started in 2008

Sports

The place has also given to India some of the greatest footballers, like Sankar Banerjee (ex-India International and Mohun Bagan coach), Prasun Mukherjee, Shanti Majumdar, Manas Bhattacharya to name a few.