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Batanagar, (Bengali বাটানগর) in the south-western outskirts of Kolkata, the major city of West Bengal, India, is one of the places named after the multinational shoe company Bata. There is a plant of the Bata company here. The employees mostly reside in Batanagar. Batanagar is in the district of South 24 Parganas and lies near the river Ganges. Nungi, the nearest rail station, is 23 km from Sealdah on the Seadah-Budge Budge section of Eastern Railway.

Not only the Bata India Shoe factory, another very remarkable feature of Batanagar, is that shoe-making is a pre-dominant cottage industry in Batanagar. Countless houses and families are dedicated to manufacturing shoes of various makes - leather, PVC, jute, etc for some of the leading shoe brands in India. For example - Khadim's, SreeLeathers, Liberty which are some of the most renowned shoe makers in India, have outsourced a major portion of their shoe making process to the various entities in Batanagar. Every alternate home in Batanagar houses a small unit which is manufacturing shoes.

This feature was born out of necessity, as almost 99% of families residing in Batanagar are dependent on the Bata factory for their livelihood, hence whenever the factory gets locked-out, these families are very severly affected. Hence shoe making from their homes has given them an alternate source of earning.

Hats off to their resilience.

The place has also given to India some of the greatest footballers, like Sankar Banerjee (ex-India International and Mohun Bagan coach), Prasun Mukherjee to name a few.

The place is also famous as being the origins of Eastern India's biggest IT education and Training provider company - LAKSHYA [1], which has recently diversified into software solutions with a client list that includes Reliance Communications, VSNL, ALCATEL, Genesys Labs to name a few. One of the founder members of LAKSHYA, Arindam Chakravorty, hails from this small town of Kolkata called Batanagar,

• Bata India website

Cities and towns in South 24 Parganas district

Amtala | Bakkhali | Balarampur | Baruipur | Batanagar | Bhangar Raghunathpur | Bilandapur | Birlapur | Bishnupur | Bowali | Budgebudge | Chak Enayetnagar | Chak Kashipur | Chata Kalikapur | Dhakuria | Diamond Harbour | Jaynagar Mazilpur | Kanyanagar | Kulpi | Maheshtala | Narendrapur | Nungi | Pujali | Raichak | Rajpur Sonarpur | Sagar Island | Uttar Durgapur | Uttar Kalas | Uttar Raypur | Baishnabghata Patuli

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