A MEMBER OF THE MUTLAH ASSOCIATION.
The Port of Calcutta and 'The Port of Mutlah,' Considered in Connection by a Railway or a Ship Canal.
CONNECTING CALCUTTA: ADVOCATING RAIL OVER SEA
“The Calcutta Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1833, gave a major share of its attention to the maintenance and improvement of the harbour and its approaches, port facilities and pilot service, but periodically despaired of the task and in the 1850’s, after renewed talk of the inevitable death of the port through silting, appointed a committee to investigate the development of the Matla (Mutlah) River, east of Calcutta, as an alternative route to the sea if and when the Hooghly became impassable” (Murphey).
This anonymous proposal sought to connect the port of Calcutta with the Mutlah river principally by rail, favouring it as far most cost effective than a link by canal. Members of the Mutlah Association convinced that “a Railroad to Mutlah would be followed by most important and beneficial consequences to the Trading and Commercial interests of Calcutta especially, and the public generally.”
We locate copies at BL and Missouri-Columbia only.
Murphey, R., “The City in the Swamp: Aspects of the Site and Early Growth of Calcutta” in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 130, No. 2 (Jun., 1964), p.248.
