-----The Story-----

In ancient India, wooden boats made in Bengal plied throughout the country carrying almost all the goods and passengers. Saptagram on the Saraswati river, a distributary of the Hooghly connecting directly with the Bay of Bengal was a major port when even Kolkata and Mumbai were not built. Merchants from Bengal and other provinces of India used it for trade with Sinhal (now Sri Lanka), Burma (Thailand) and even European countries. Prince Dwarkanath Tagore owned several tugboats powered by steam engines. This was followed by steamboat ferry service, which took passengers and goods up and down the Ganges. There are records dating back to 1821, of him sending a ship laden with rum, nutmeg, and aniseed to Valparaiso in Chile and Buenos Aires in Argentina. Most of these huge boats were made by craftsmen from Bengal, including Balagarh, a small village a few kilometers away from Saptagram in the Hooghly Flats of the Gangetic Delta in West Bengal.
Today, there are 20-30 small workshops where highly skilled workers craft a boat in 3-4 days, providing a living for about 150 families. Measurements are still made with string and stick, planks are shaped by heating and pressing, then placed side by side and fixed by small iron nails using old-fashioned hammers, chisels and hand saws. Usually acacia or raintree wood is used for cheaper boats since teak and mahogany are costly though they last for decades. Earnings are meagre, ranging from 200-300 rupees a day as the profit margins are very small. The industry began to witness a slump in demand when road and rail connectivity improved and boats were no longer the sole mode of transportation. Fortunately, a move by the State government to replace 15,000 mechanized boats in West Bengal’s waterways and a floating market in Kolkata have brought hope to the wooden boat makers of Balagarh, who have been languishing for want of steady demand. The Kolkakta Port Trust also plans to set up a terminal at Balgarh which will probably help the industry to flourish again.