Author:

Dr.Pooja Banerjee
1Part time Guest Lecturer
Department of History
Jadavpur University
Kolkata,West Bengal,India

Email: pjbnrj91@gmail.com

Abstract:::Calcutta owed its growth and prosperity to the river Hooghly from the middle of the
sixteenth century, when the Portuguese started navigating up and down the river and
connecting its banks to Indian Ocean trade. The British called the river ‘Hooghly’; it was
derived from the town by the same name around 30 kilometres north of Calcutta on the banks
of the river, which was their primary base. In this article I will show how the Hoogly river
became the main source of Water Supply and how it urbanised Calcutta ,the second British
capital.

Key Words::Calcutta, Hooghly, Tallah, Urbanisation, Water ,Water Supply etc