Balagarh Boats: Bengal's oldest boat-building craft gets a GI Tag

Step into Balagarh and you will be greeted by the rhythmic sound of chisels and hammers on wood. Boats are made in this town of Hooghly district all year round. Much like Kumartuli is the idol-making hub of Bengal, Balagarh is the boat-making cradle of eastern India. 

The boatmakers — mainly from the Rajbonshi community, whose primary occupation is fishing — received recognition for their tireless craft when the Balagarh boat was awarded the Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2026. 

The boatmaking tradition in Balagarh near Katwa goes back more than five hundred years but the boatmakers do not belong to any fixed caste or community. “Boats have a long life and hence their demand is less. So one cannot completely rely on boatmaking for a living,” explains Swarup Bhattacharyya, who has been documenting boatmaking in Bengal for nearly three decades.

In Balagarh, boats can be found in front of every house. Boats are made everywhere like in Tentulia or Chandra but Rajbonshipara of Sripur is the true boat-making hub of Balagarh. ‘’Saptagram near Balagarh was a popular port in ancient India. As trade thrived, artisans in Balagarh not only repaired boats. When the port stopped operation, the same people may have started making boats and selling them. However, there is no evidence of this. Rather, it is a deduction based on the geographical location of the place,’’ says Bhattacharyya, often called the Boatman of Bengal.

Among the various kinds of boats made in Balagarh, the most famous is perhaps the dinghy (dingi) — a traditional handcrafted wooden vessel and one of the oldest types of boats. Dinghy itself can be of different types but the ones made in Balagarh are unique. The shape of the dinghy, the markings on the boat here are very different from others. The measurements are made with string and stick. There’s a popular saying in Bengali “Balagarher dinghy aar Jhumjhumir Chhot.” Jhumjhumi is a place in Howrah district where a boat called chhot was made. It was a fishing and cargo vessel and was popularly called the Ruler of the Waves. Chhot boats are no longer made.

The design of a boat is determined by the type of water it sails on. Dinghies can float on water where there are fewer waves. Most rivers in Bengal have minimal waves and so dinghies are the popular choice. 

Boats from Balagarh are sent to Murshidabad, Howrah, Sunderbans, Bihar and Jharkhand. Those sent to Murshidabad are called Uttorer Nouko (Boat of the North) and the ones sent to the Sunderbans are called Dakshiner Nouko (Boat of the South). Since the nature and type of rivers are different in these two areas, two different kinds of dinghies are made for the two regions. Hence, the dinghies that sail on the Bhagirathi river of Murshidabad are distinct in build from the ones that sail on the Matla river in the Sunderbans.

The wood (sirish, arjun, babla) used to make boats in Balagarh now is not expensive. These boats don’t take too long to craft and so they are price effective and much in demand. There are two other kinds of boats made in this region called bali tolar nouko (sand digging boat) and the L-shaped) chhot chal. The bali tolar nouka is a cargo boat for picking up sand from the river bed. The L-shaped boats have an angular hull and are heavy-duty cargo vessels.