Gitaldaha is a village and a

gram panchayat Gram Panchayat () is a basic village-governing institute in Indian villages. It is a democratic structure at the grass-roots level in India. It is a political institute, acting as cabinet of the village. The Gram Sabha work as the general bod ...

in the

Dinhata I Dinhata I is a community development block (CD block) that forms an administrative division in the Dinhata subdivision of the Cooch Behar district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Geography Petla, one of the constituent panchayats of the block ...

CD block in the

Dinhata subdivision Dinhata subdivision is a subdivision of the Cooch Behar district in the state of West Bengal, India. Subdivisions Cooch Behar district is divided into the following administrative subdivisions: Administrative units Dinhata subdivision has 2 ...

of the

Cooch Behar district Cooch Behar district () is a district of Indian state of West Bengal. Formerly part of the Kamarupa kingdom, the area became the heart of the Kamata Kingdom in the 12th century. During the British Raj, the district was known as Cooch Behar st ...

in the state of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Geography

Location

Gitaldaha is located at . Gitaldaha I and Gitaldaha II are gram panchayats in Dinhata I CD block.

Area overview

The map alongside shows the eastern part of the district. In Tufanganj subdivision 6.97% of the population lives in the urban areas and 93.02% lives in the rural areas. In Dinhata subdivision 5.98% of the population lives in the urban areas and 94.02% lives in the urban areas. The entire district forms the flat

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

flood plains of mighty rivers. Note: The map alongside presents some of the notable locations in the subdivisions. All places marked in the map are linked in the larger full screen map.

Demographics

As per the

2011 Census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...

, Gitaldaha had a total population of 3,917. There were 2,058 (53%) males and 1,859 (47%) females. There were 492 persons in the age range of 0 to 6 years. The total number of literate people in Gitaldaha was 2,563 (74.83% of the population over 6 years).

Railway connections

New Gitaldaha railway station New Gitaldaha railway station is on the broad-gauge Alipurduar–Bamanhat branch line. Gitaldaha was a railway station and is a defunct rail transit point on the India–Bangladesh border in Cooch Behar district in the Indian state of West Be ...

is on the broad gauge Alipurduar-Bamanhat branch line. Local trains link the area to larger stations at Cooch Behar and Alipurduar from where trains are available for places all over the country. The area was agog with railway activity in the 19th-20th century. The Assam Behar State Railway linked Parbatipur to

Katihar Katihar is a city situated in the eastern part of the state of Bihar in India. It is the regional headquarter of Katihar district. It is one of the important cities of Bihar. Also it's a main route of Delhi - Guwahati railway line. History Ka ...

, with a

metre gauge Metre-gauge railways are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. The metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by European colonial powers, such as the French, British and German Empires. In Europe, la ...

line in 1889. in the early 1900s, the

Eastern Bengal Railway The Eastern Bengal Railway (full name: "Eastern Bengal Railway Company"; shortened EBR) was one of the pioneering railway companies that operated from 1857 to 1942, in Bengal and Assam provinces of British India. History Formation The Eastern ...

extended railways to

Lalmonirhat Lalmonirhat ( bn, লালমনিরহাট) is a town and district headquarters of Lalmonirhat District in the division of Rangpur, Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in Sout ...

, Gitaldaha (via Mogalhat),

Bamanhat Bamanhat is a neighbourhood and a gram panchayat in the Dinhata II CD block in the Dinhata subdivision of the Cooch Behar district, West Bengal, India. Geography Location Bamanhat is located at . Bamanhat I and Bamanhat II are gram pancha ...

Golokganj Golokganj (also spelt as Golakganj or Galakganj) is a census town in Dhubri district in the Indian state of Assam. Golakganj is one of the historical places of Dhubri district. Geography Golakganj is located at . It has an average elevation of ...

and other places, thereby connecting Assam to Katihar, in Bihar, via North Bengal. In 1901

Cooch Behar State Railway Cooch Behar State Railway (CBSR) was a narrow-gauge railway from Jayanti to Lalmonirhat in the Indian state of West Bengal. History Nripendra Narayan, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, established Cooch Behar State Railway in 1893–98. After so ...

built the

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

line from Gitaldaha to Jayanti, near the Bhutan border. Shortly thereafter, the line was upgraded to meter gauge. The Lalmonirhat-Mogalhat-Gitaldaha route was functional when India and Pakistan agreed in 1955 for resumption of railway traffic between the two countries, and it included movement of cross traffic via Mogalhat through the Eastern Bengal Railway. A portion of the bridge across the Dharla River at was washed away by floods in 1988. The conversion of the long Alipurduar-Bamanhat branch line to

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...

in 2007, and its subsequent recommissioning, had a station at New Gitaldaha.

References

{{Cooch Behar District Villages in Cooch Behar district