Steam Communication
Steam Communication developed first in England after invention of steam power in the eighteenth century. The British introduced steamships in India and excavated about 2,600 miles of canals at an outlay of 50 million pound sterling. India continued to have its primitive communication system marked by country boats of poor tonnage and low speed along silted rivers, and bullock carts along muddy roads. At that time, waterways were usually preferred to in the region for the movement of goods and passengers because land carriage was expensive, almost double the cost of carriage by waterways.
The river ganges was the principal business route between calcutta, the seat of British power in India, and the territories to the northwest and, through its conjunction with the brahmaputra at Goalundo and the meghna at Chandpur, to those to the east and northeast. But there were many difficulties in navigation in the Ganges in those days. The largest country boat was capable of carrying a cargo of 60 tons only and had the maximum speed limit of six or seven miles per hour. The traffic from the northwest could follow the route through the Bhagirathi, Jalangi and Matabhanga, the three branches of the river Ganges which unite to form the river hughli on which Calcutta is situated. They could move direct to Calcutta in the dry cool months from November to January, while in the spring, these river branches became shallow for even boats of very small size and in rains, were over-flooded and dangerous for navigation. But the traffic from the districts in Eastern Bengal had to adopt, presumably throughout the year, the circuitous route along the main stream of the Ganges and reach Calcutta via the sundarbans and the rivers intersecting them which, too, were overflooded and dangerous in rains. Steam-propelled boats, independent as they were of tides and wind unlike the conventional country boats, appeared as the solution to such a problem.
As early as 1822, a meeting was held in London, at the imitative of the mercantile and the shipping interests there, to found a General Steam Navigation Company. The idea was to introduce the steamboats in the voyage between England and India and thus to shorten the six to four months' time needed for this journey round the Cape of Good Hope in those days. The first steam-aided sailing ship to complete the voyage from London to Calcutta via the Cape of Good Hope between August and December 1825 was the Enterprise. The experiment was far from successful. The time taken to complete the journey was longer than what was stipulated and heat and dust made the journey most uncomfortable for the passengers. In 1823, a steamboat as a passenger liner appeared on the Hughli but the service was discontinued soon. About 1826, the east india company government at Calcutta had been using a number of steamboats as tugs for towing massive European sailing ships across the Hughli. Private capital was being invested in these ventures from the very beginning. Almost from the beginning, again, the idea was being mooted as to the practicability of steam navigation along the rivers of India.
lord william bentinck arrived at Calcutta in 1828 as the Governor General of Fort William. With his reforming zeal, he took an active interest in steam navigation along the rivers of India. W T Princep holding important governmental positions in India since 1809, and having enough experience of navigation along its rivers in common country boats, was asked to find out the feasibility of the schemes. The first experimental voyage along the Ganges to Allahabad and back in the Hughli by one of the newly procured steamboats was accomplished under the overall charge of Captain Johnston towards the end of 1828. In 1834, a regular steamer service was introduced on the Ganges. During the Burmese War of 1824-1826, steamer service along the Brahmaputra was contemplated for facilitating the transport of troops and military stores to the northeast for defense purposes. The political settlement after the close of the war left the frontier region into friendly hands and the steamer service for military purposes became redundant.
When tea from upper Assam began gaining a steady overseas market since the 1840s, the government reintroduced steamer service on a new route between Calcutta and Gauhati in 1847. In 1856, the government steamer service was extended from Gauhati to Dibrugarh. But in this early period, steamer service was not available for ordinary commercial purposes. Steamers were not many in number and the charges were also high. A ticket from Calcutta to Gauhati would cost not less than Rs 150. Freight on ordinary stores was charged at the rate of Rs 1 per cft for carriage between these two points. The usual hazards attending upon a journey in country boats along these rivers had to be faced by steamers as well.
But, steadily the position had been changing. Steamboats were becoming common on India's waterways. Shipbuilding premises began to grow up in Calcutta, Messrs Kyd and Co. having one at a very early period and launching Diana, the first steamship to be used as a passenger liner on the Hughli in 1823. The Indian General Steam Navigation Company operated a steamer service along the Ganges and being unable to face competition from the newly introduced east indian railway, it started a new service along the Brahmaputra. In 1862, the River Steam Navigation Company also started operations. In the 1880s, the Indian Steam Navigation Company ran steamers along the Meghna too. Presumably, this new mode of river transport started drawing increasing traffic to it in Eastern Bengal where more than one shipping company had been operating.
From the 1850s, the railway network began to spread in India. This relatively cheaper mode of transport covered vast tracts of land in a much shorter time and offered more accommodation and ease. It was only natural that it would offer a stiff competition to the existing modes of transport. But, the situation was rather different in Eastern Bengal. The eastern bengal railway that started operating in the region in the 1860s could not significantly affect the steamer service along the rivers in the region. In the riverine region the river transport remained as important as before.
The Eastern Bengal Railway from Calcutta to Kushtia near the Ganges opposite Pabna was opened in 1862 and in 1870, it extended up to Goalundo at the confluence of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. This railway was expected to absorb the traffic converging there along the Ganges and the Brhmaputra with their branches from the interior districts of Eastern Bengal and also from Assam and the northwest which, for their major part, had to take recourse to for the considerable part of the year to country boats along the main channel of the Ganges via the Sundarbans - the circuitous route - to reach Calcutta. But, in practice, even after the railway had been operating at least for a few years, this absorption was at a much slower rate and the steamers and the country boats continued to have almost the same role in the transport of goods and passengers as before. The district of Dhaka, for example, had an extensive internal and foreign trade through commercial outposts at the confluence of the rivers, Lakshya and dhaleshwari, the tributaries of the old Brahmaputra and the Meghna respectively, was dependent on the water communication with other parts of the country. Through Narayanganj it went on maintaining a regular steam communication with Calcutta. In the district of Sylhet, too, steamers had been carrying tea, the major export from the area.
The years following saw the area going through many changes, political, social and economic. The transport system in independent Bangladesh has passed through many stages of development. But the water transport is quite common and steam communication along the rivers in the country retains much of its importance. Steamers now continue to operate between Dhaka, Barisal and Khulna as well as in the coastal area for transporting goods and passengers. [Hena Mukherjee]
