Generating Power Since 1899 ...

To explore the history of Kolkata ( Calcutta ), we have to go back to the 17 th. century. It was 1690 when a British Job Charnock came to the bank of the river Hooghly and identified three villages- Sutanuti, Govindapur and Kolikata (Calcutta) as a trading post of British East India Company. In 1698 East India Company bought these three villages (Sutanuti, Kolkata, Gibondapur ) from local landlord Sabarna Chowdhury and Mughal emperor Farrukh-siyar granted the East India Company the freedom of trade in return for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees. Then the capital city of Bengal was in Murshidabad, around 60 miles north of Calcutta. In 1756 Siraj-ud-daullah, then the nawab of Bengal, attacked and captured the city. Robert Clive recaptured Calcutta in 1757 when the British defeated Siraj-ud-daullah on the battle field of Plassy. In 1772, Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India, made it the seat of the supreme courts of justice and the supreme revenue administration, and Calcutta became the capital of British India in 1772. By 1800 Calcutta had become a busy and flourishing town, the center of the cultural as well as the political and economic life of Bengal. Till 1912, Calcutta was the capital of India, when British moved the capital city to Delhi. In 1947 India got her independence from the British rule and Calcutta became the capital city of the state of West Bengal. Calcutta has been officially renamed as 'Kolkata' from 1st Januray, 2001

CESC Limited is the pioneer in the history of generation of electricity in India. We commenced power generation and distribution in Kolkata, in 1899. The electrification of Kolkata city took place seventeen years after New York, which boasted of Electricity in 1882 and eleven years after London, which was electrified in 1888. We are proud to be associated with this historic event. We are proud to serve the Kolkatans.

KOLKATA TIMELINE ...

• 1690 Job Charnok, of East India Company settles in Kolkata
• 1772 Kolkata became the capital of British India
• 1784 The first official news paper , The Kolkata Gazzette, was published
• 1899 CESC commenced power generation and distribution in Kolkata
• 1902 First Electric tram car from Esplanade to Kidderepore
• 1911 British moved the capital city of India from Kolkata to Delhi
• 1913 Rabindranath Tagore received Nobel Prize in literature
• 1921 King Edward VIII inaugurated the Victoria Memorial building
• 1929 Agnes Goinxha Bejaxhiu (Mother Teresa), came to Kolkata.
• 1947 India gained Independence. Bengal was divided
• 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded Nobel Peace Prize
• 1984 Metro, the first underground railway in India started.
• 1992 Satyajit Roy, film director, received "Life Time Achievement" Oscar award
• 1998 Amartya Sen, another Kolkatan, receives Nobel Prize in Ecomonics
• 2001 Calcutta has been officially renamed as 'Kolkata' from 1st Januray, 2001