About city:

• Jalpaiguri  is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal.
• It is the largest city and the headquarters of the Jalpaiguri district, and the divisional headquarters of the region.
• The city is located on the banks of the Teesta River which is the second largest river in West Bengal after the Ganges, on the foothills of the Himalayas.
• The city is the home to the circuit bench of the Kolkata High Court, the other seat being at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• It is presently, the sixth largest city in the state after Kolkata, Asansol, Siliguri, Durgapur and Berhampore.
• The city has become an important trade center of West Bengal, besides being a principal commercial, tourism, transportation, and educational center.
• Jalpaiguri features the JGEC Deemed University, the second campus of the University of North Bengal, the newly built Jalpaiguri Medical College and the Biswa Bangla Krirangan/ Jalpaiguri Sports Village.
• It lies 35 kilometers away from its twin city, Siliguri which both merges up to be the largest metropolis of the region.

Etymology:

• The name “Jalpaiguri” comes from the Bhutanese term je-le-pe-go-ri  which means a place where warm clothes are traded, suggesting a trading centre.
• It is from the word “Jalpai” means olive, and “Guri” means a place.
• The city once had many olive trees.

History:

• The Raikat family was a princely family that controlled large estates in Baikunthapur which  is now a part of West Bengal, India.
• First as subjects to the state of Koch Bihar, later as Zamindars to the Mughal rulers of Bengal, and then to British Raj.
• The Raikat family is descended from the Koch dynasty, who took control of the Kamata Kingdom in 1515.
• The family founder was Sisya Singha, elder brother of Viswa Singha, the second Koch Maharajah.
• At Viswa Singha’s coronation in 1523, Sisya Singha held the royal umbrella atop the crown, a sign of vassalage.
• Sisya Singha was given the title “Raikat” or “family guardian”, and his descendants were hereditary prime ministers of the Koch Bihar successor state to the Kamata kingdom.
• They were given the land of Baikunthapur in the present Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal.

Geography:

• Teesta River Bay in Jalpaiguri.
• Jalpaiguri is located at 26.52°N 88.73°E.
• It has an average elevation of 75 metres  i.e. 246 feet.
• Jalpaiguri lies in the middle of the vast fertile plains i.e. Terai south of the Himalayas, watered by innumerable rivers and rivulets rising from and flowing down the Himalayas.
• Other than the Teesta, the Karala River, nicknamed the “Thames of Jalpaiguri”, flows through the city thereby bisecting it into two halves.

Climate:

• The city of Jalpaiguri experiences three seasons mainly, namely summer, monsoons and winter.
• Summers are tropical and quite hot with temperatures ranging in the mid-thirties in Celsius.
• The highest recorded temperature in Jalpaiguri was 41.3 degree Celsius.
• Monsoons are very severe with the city experiencing high amount of rainfall, sometimes stalling all life and activities.
• Winters are again quite severe and chilly, with the cold Himalayan winds blowing straight into the city. Temperatures are around 8 to 14 degrees Celsius during this period.
• The lowest recorded temperature in Jalpaiguri City was 2.1 degree Celsius.
• However, the climate has undergone a drastic change in the past few years, with the mercury rising and the rainfall decreasing each year.

Culture:

• Major festivals observed at Jalpaiguri include Durga puja, Chhath Puja, Ganesh puja, Laxmi puja, Saraswati puja, Dipawali, etc.
• Baishaki mela is one of the oldest mela in Jalpaiguri.
• The fashion week during winters are celebrated for entertainment.
• Various concerts are organized by local clubs, which continues from mid-October to mid-December.
• Lot of fairs and carnivals take place in Jalpaiguri.
• The famous fares in Jalpaiguri are “ Boishakhi Mela, Hosto Shilpo Mela, Book Fair, Lexpo Fair, Handicraft fair, Gramosri Mela, Sangeet, ‘’etc.
• Most of the fairs happens in The Jalpaiguri District Sports Complex Stadium.
• The city has a rich cultural exercise in it.

New Jalpaiguri Junction railway station:

• New Jalpaiguri  Station code: “NJP’’ is a railway station which serves the twin cities of Siliguri and Jalpaiguri, located in the Jalpaiguri district of the Indian state of West Bengal.
• The partition of India in 1947 completely disrupted communication links in North Bengal and Assam with the southern parts of West Bengal.
• Earlier, the links were through the eastern part of Bengal, which became a part of Pakistan in 1947. Siliguri gained in importance as the gateway to North Bengal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Assam.
• Around 1949, Siliguri Junction station, a new station north of the old Siliguri Town railway station, came up with several metre gauge lines converging on it.
• In addition there was the narrow gauge Darjeeling Himalayan Railway running from Siliguri Town station to Darjeeling via Siliguri Junction.
• The Assam Rail Link Project, completed in 1950, linked the railways in Assam, with a metre gauge line to Kishanganj.

• The line running across North Bengal, spanned the Teesta, Torsha, and Sankosh rivers.
• In the early 1960s, Indian Railways started changing over from metre gauge to broad gauge and built a new 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge station south of Siliguri Town station.
• Since the new station was located in Jalpaiguri district, it was named New Jalpaiguri.
• By 1964, New Jalpaiguri became the most important railway station in the area.
• It had both broad gauge (to Kishanganj and Barsoi, and to Siliguri town and Siliguri junction) and metre gauge (to Siliguri town and Siliguri junction) tracks.
• The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway narrow gauge track was extended from Siliguri town station to the new greenfield station.
• The metre gauge track from New Jaipaiguri to Siliguri town and Siliguri junction was later converted to broad gauge.

Services:

• New Jalpaiguri railway station is amongst the top hundred booking stations of Indian Railway.
• New Jalpaiguri is connected to almost all parts of the country except Goa and Surat and has been ranked 10th in the Cleanest Railway Stations of India recently.
• It has a good connection to Kolkata, Delhi and Guwahati and there are many other trains to different parts of India.
• New Jalpaiguri is the Busiest station in North Bengal and the Northeast Frontier Railway Zone.
• Four Rajdhani and a Shatabdi Express (to Howrah) run at this station.
• There are 15 Trains to Delhi, 16 Trains to Kolkata, 7 Trains to Chennai, 4 Trains to Bangalore, 4 Trains to Mumbai and there are many other trains that halt at this station.

Amenities:

• New Jalpaiguri railway station has two double-bedded air-conditioned (AC) retiring rooms, six double-bedded non-AC retiring rooms, one three-bedded dormitory and one twelve-bedded dormitory.
• It has IRCTC and other private restaurants.