West Bengal State Guide: History, Government, Elections, Exams

Overview

West Bengal is the state at the eastern end of the Indian mainland, where the Himalaya meets the Bay of Bengal. It has an area of 88,752 sq km and, at Census 2011, 91,276,115 people, which made it the fourth most populous state. It runs from the Darjeeling hills in the north to the mangrove islands of the Sundarbans in the south. Kolkata, on the Hooghly river, is the capital. It borders Bangladesh to the east, Nepal and Bhutan in the north, and the Indian states of Sikkim, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha; see the guides for Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam and Sikkim. As on October 2026, the state has 23 districts in 5 divisions; five more districts were proposed in the 2026-27 budget but their notification is not confirmed (see the administration section).

The state is a product of two partitions. The old Bengal Presidency was split once in 1905 and undone in 1911, and then split again in 1947 along religious lines by the Radcliffe Award. The western, Hindu-majority part became the Indian state of West Bengal on 15 August 1947; the eastern part became East Pakistan and, in 1971, Bangladesh. The state later took in the princely state of Cooch Behar (1950), the French enclave of Chandernagore (1954) and the Purulia area from Bihar (1956). Bengali, spoken by about 86 per cent of residents at Census 2011, is its common language.

For roughly 150 years Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the capital of British India, until 1911. The city and its hinterland produced the Bengal Renaissance, a period of reform and creativity that gave India Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel Prize, 1913), the first modern university system on the subcontinent, and leaders of the freedom movement. The state is also a major producer of rice, jute and tea, and holds the Raniganj coalfield and the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, shared with Bangladesh.

This part covers history, geography, administration and demography. This guide does not name sitting office-holders; for the current Governor, Chief Minister and others, see Current Affairs.

For exam preparation

• West Bengal came into being as a province of independent India on 15 August 1947; Kolkata is the capital.
• Area is 88,752 sq km and Census 2011 population is 91,276,115 (final figure).
• It borders three countries (Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan) and five states (Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim, Assam).
• As on October 2026 it has 23 notified districts in 5 divisions (Presidency, Burdwan, Malda, Jalpaiguri, Medinipur).
• The state's highest point is Sandakphu (3,636 m) on the Singalila range in the Darjeeling hills.
• The Sundarbans is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 1987) and part of the world's largest mangrove forest.

History

Bengal's history is that of a river delta that drew traders, kings and conquerors for 2,500 years. Ancient kingdoms called Vanga, Gauda and Pundra gave way to the Buddhist Palas and the Hindu Senas, then to the Bengal Sultanate and the Mughal province (subah) of Bengal. The English East India Company turned Calcutta into the base of its empire after Plassey (1757). In the twentieth century the region was partitioned twice, and the western half emerged as the state of West Bengal in 1947.

Ancient Bengal: Vanga, Gauda and Pundra

Early texts and inscriptions name several regions in the delta. Vanga lay in the south and east, the root of the name Bengal. Pundra (Pundravardhana) was the north, around present Bogra in Bangladesh and parts of North Bengal. Radha (Rarh) was the western laterite zone. Gauda covered the middle Ganga delta and later became the common name for the whole region. Samatata was the south-east coast.

The region came under Magadha and then the Maurya empire, and the Gupta emperors ruled much of it between about the fourth and sixth centuries CE. Tamralipta (now Tamluk in Purba Medinipur) was a major port for sea trade with Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

After the Guptas, Shashanka (early seventh century), king of Gauda with his capital at Karnasuvarna near Murshidabad, built the first independent Bengal kingdom of note. After his death came a period of anarchy that later chronicles call matsyanyaya, "the law of the fishes".

The Palas and the Senas

The anarchy ended when the chiefs of Gauda chose Gopala as king, around the middle of the eighth century (about 750 CE). The Pala dynasty he founded ruled Bengal and Bihar until about 1161. Dharmapala and Devapala (early ninth century) made it the leading power of northern India, with campaigns reaching the Gangetic heartland. The Palas, Mahayana Buddhists, supported Nalanda, founded Vikramashila in Bihar and built the Somapura Mahavihara at Paharpur (now Bangladesh, a World Heritage Site). The Charyapada, the oldest known songs in proto-Bengali, is linked with this period. Mahipala I (late tenth century) revived the kingdom after a decline.

The Sena dynasty, who came from the Karnataka region, rose as Pala power weakened. Vijayasena is regarded as its real founder, and by about 1161 the Senas had replaced the Palas in most of Bengal. Ballala Sena and Lakshmana Sena ruled from Vikrampur and Nabadwip (Nadia) and Gauda, and the Sena court supported Sanskrit literature; Jayadeva's Gita Govinda is traditionally associated with Lakshmana Sena's court. Around 1204-05 the Turkish commander Bakhtiyar Khalji attacked the Sena capital at Nabadwip, and Lakshmana Sena withdrew eastward. The exact year and manner of the "conquest" are debated.

The Bengal Sultanate (c. 1204-1576)

After Bakhtiyar's raid, Bengal was ruled from Delhi through governors who were often practically independent. In 1352 Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah united the three regional centres of Lakhnauti, Satgaon and Sonargaon under a single sultanate. Several dynasties followed: the Ilyas Shahis (including a restored line), the house of Ganesha, the Habshi (Abyssinian) rulers, and the Hussain Shahi dynasty (1494-1538), the "golden age" of the sultanate. Its ruined capitals Gaur and Pandua lie in Malda. The sultans patronised Bengali literature, and trade in fine cotton cloth reached China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

In the sixteenth century the Bhakti teacher Chaitanya (1486-1534) of Nabadwip spread devotion to Krishna and shaped Bengali Vaishnavism. The Karrani Afghans were the last sultanate rulers. The end came at the Battle of Raj Mahal (1576), where Akbar's army defeated Daud Khan Karrani.

The Mughal Subah of Bengal

Bengal became a subah (province) of the Mughal empire, one of its largest and wealthiest; it covered present West Bengal, Bangladesh and parts of Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. The capital was at Dhaka for much of the seventeenth century and then Murshidabad. In 1717 Murshid Quli Khan, formerly the diwan (finance officer), became hereditary nawab and the province drifted towards de facto independence while keeping nominal allegiance to Delhi. Europeans settled on the Hooghly: the Portuguese at Hooghly, the Dutch at Chinsura, the French at Chandernagore, the Danes at Serampore and the English, who settled at Sutanuti in 1690 and in 1698 bought it with Kalikata and Gobindapur, the core of Calcutta.

Plassey, Buxar and the Company

The new nawab Siraj ud-Daulah (1756) seized Calcutta from the English in June 1756, an event later retold as the "Black Hole" story, whose scale is disputed. In response Robert Clive recaptured the city and, on 23 June 1757, defeated the nawab at Plassey (Palashi, Nadia district). The betrayal of the nawab by his commander Mir Jafar decided the day. The Company now put its own nominee on the throne. When the next nawab, Mir Qasim, tried to act independently, he was defeated; joined by Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, he lost the Battle of Buxar (22-23 October 1764, in present Bihar) to the force under Hector Munro. The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) gave the Company the diwani, the right to collect revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The great famine of 1770 followed soon after, with a death toll estimated as high as one-third of Bengal's people (a disputed figure). The Permanent Settlement of 1793 under Cornwallis fixed land revenue with zamindars and shaped rural Bengal for 150 years.

Calcutta, capital of British India

Calcutta became the seat of the Governor-General under the Regulating Act of 1773. It was the capital of British India until 1911, when the capital was shifted to Delhi; for most of that time it was the second city of the British empire. Fort William College (1800), the Hindu College (1817) and the University of Calcutta (1857), one of the first three modern universities in India, were founded there.

The Bengal Renaissance

The intellectual movement known as the Bengal Renaissance ran from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Raja Ram Mohan Roy campaigned against sati (outlawed in 1829) and founded the Brahmo Sabha (1828), later the Brahmo Samaj. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar pressed for widow remarriage, which became law in 1856, and for women's education. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Anandamath (1882), which contains the song Vande Mataram. Swami Vivekananda (Chicago address, 1893) carried Ramakrishna's message abroad; Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, the first for an Asian. In science Jagadish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray and Satyendra Nath Bose worked in Calcutta. Writers such as Kazi Nazrul Islam and Begum Rokeya also belong to this tradition.

The 1905 Partition and Swadeshi

Lord Curzon split the Bengal Presidency in 1905, with the plan announced in July and taking effect on 16 October 1905. A new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam (capital Dhaka, mostly Muslim) was created, while the rest, including Calcutta, Bihar and Odisha, remained as Bengal. The official reason was administrative; Bengali leaders saw a divide-and-rule policy. The protest was a mass movement: the Swadeshi campaign of using Indian-made goods, the boycott of British cloth, national education and Rabindranath Tagore's rakhi ceremony of 16 October as a sign of unity. At the Delhi Durbar on 12 December 1911, George V announced that the partition would be annulled and the capital moved to Delhi; Bengal was reunited and Bihar and Orissa formed a separate province on 1 April 1912.

Freedom movement

Bengal was a centre of both constitutional and revolutionary nationalism. The Indian Association (1876) of Surendranath Banerjee was an early political body. Revolutionaries such as Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki acted in 1908, and Aurobindo Ghosh and others were tried in the Alipore Bomb Case. In the 1920s Chittaranjan Das led the Swaraj Party, and Subhas Chandra Bose, who was twice elected Congress president, formed the Forward Bloc (1939) and later the Indian National Army in Southeast Asia. The Bengal famine of 1943 killed an estimated 2 to 3 million people (toll disputed).

Partition of 1947 and formation of West Bengal

The Bengal Legislative Assembly met on 20 June 1947; in a joint vote it opposed partition, but the separate votes of members from the Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority districts allowed it under the Mountbatten Plan. Earlier, the Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946 set off the Great Calcutta Killings, and communal violence spread to Noakhali in October 1946, where Mahatma Gandhi went to stay and walk through villages in the winter of 1946-47. A boundary commission under Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew the line; its award was published on 17 August 1947, two days after independence. Calcutta stayed with India; Murshidabad, a Muslim-majority district, went to India, and Khulna, with a Hindu-majority population, went to Pakistan. Reportedly, flags flew in the wrong places for two days until the award was published. The Hindu-majority West Bengal became a province of India on 15 August 1947, with about 14 districts. Refugees from East Bengal, roughly 2 million in the first phase by one reported estimate, kept arriving for decades.

Merger of Cooch Behar and Chandernagore, and the Bihar transfers

Cooch Behar, a princely state under the Koch dynasty, signed a merger agreement with India on 28 August 1949; the Government of India took over its administration on 12 September 1949, and it became a district of West Bengal on 19 January 1950. Chandernagore (Chandannagar), a French settlement on the Hooghly since the late seventeenth century, voted in a 1949 referendum to join India; it passed to Indian control in 1950, and was merged into West Bengal on 2 October 1954.

The States Reorganisation Act and the Bihar and West Bengal (Transfer of Territories) Act, 1956 moved part of Bihar's Manbhum district, the Purulia subdivision, to West Bengal, effective 1 November 1956; this became Purulia district. Chas, Chandil and Patamda stayed in Bihar (now Jharkhand). Some books place Bihar-to-Bengal transfers around 1960; the only transfer we could verify is the 1956 one, so no separate 1960 transfer is stated here.

For exam preparation

• Vanga, Gauda and Pundra are ancient regions; Shashanka (early 7th century) ruled Gauda from Karnasuvarna.
• The Pala dynasty began with Gopala (c. 750 CE); Dharmapala founded Vikramashila; the Sena dynasty ended Pala rule around 1161.
• Bakhtiyar Khalji's attack on Nabadwip is dated to around 1204; Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah united Bengal in 1352.
• The Battle of Plassey was fought on 23 June 1757; the Battle of Buxar on 22-23 October 1764; the diwani was granted in 1765.
• Calcutta was the capital of British India until 1911; the 1905 partition took effect on 16 October 1905; its annulment was announced on 12 December 1911.
• West Bengal formed on 15 August 1947; Cooch Behar merged in 1950; Chandernagore on 2 October 1954; Purulia was added on 1 November 1956.

Geography

West Bengal lies between about 21°25' and 27°13' N and 85°50' and 89°50' E. It is a long, narrow state: some 600 km from the Himalayan foothills in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south, with a narrow "Chicken's Neck" (Siliguri Corridor) of only a few tens of kilometres connecting north Bengal with the rest of India. It covers 88,752 sq km. Its seven natural regions are the Darjeeling Himalaya, the Terai-Dooars, the North Bengal plains, the Rarh region, the western plateau fringe, the coastal plain and the Ganga delta. The state is crossed by the Ganga and the Hooghly, with the Teesta, Torsa and Damodar as important regional rivers.

Location and boundaries

The state touches five Indian states and three countries. Sikkim lies to the north, Assam to the north-east, Bihar to the west and north-west, Jharkhand to the west, and Odisha to the south-west. Nepal is in the north-west near Darjeeling, Bhutan in the north-east near Alipurduar, and Bangladesh runs the whole of the east and south-east, with a long and complicated boundary. The 2015 land boundary agreement between India and Bangladesh exchanged enclaves, which affected parts of Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri; we do not give the exact number of enclaves here as it was not confirmed in the sources checked. In the south lies the Bay of Bengal, with the coast running through East Midnapore and South 24 Parganas; the coastline is often given as about 157 km, a figure we have not confirmed.

Physiography

The Darjeeling Himalaya in the north takes in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. The Singalila range forms the border with Nepal and holds Sandakphu (3,636 m), the highest point in the state, along with Phalut, from where Kanchenjunga, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu can be seen on clear days. Darjeeling town, the "Queen of the Hills", sits at about 2,000 m. Below the hills lies the Terai, a damp strip about 38 km wide with clay and sand and a high water table, and the Dooars ("doors" to Bhutan), a forested alluvial plain in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar.

The North Bengal plains (Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur, Malda) are built of new alluvium laid down by the Teesta, Mahananda and other rivers coming down from the Himalaya. In the middle is the Rarh region, 50 to 100 m above sea level, of older alluvium and laterite soil, through Birbhum, Bardhaman and parts of Bankura. In the west the land rises into the eastern edge of the Chota Nagpur plateau, at about 100 to 500 m, through Purulia, Bankura and Jhargram. The delta in the south (Nadia, the 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, East Midnapore) is flat, with an average height of about 10 m in the Sundarbans, and fed by silt from the Ganga.

Rivers

The Ganga enters West Bengal near Rajmahal at the Jharkhand border. At Farakka it is tapped by a barrage (a project of the 1970s) that feeds the Bhagirathi-Hooghly channel, which flows through Murshidabad, Nadia, Hooghly, Howrah and Kolkata to the Bay of Bengal at Sagar Island; the main stream continues east as the Padma into Bangladesh. Most rivers on the west bank (Ajay, Damodar, Mayurakshi, Rupnarayan, Kangsabati) join the Bhagirathi-Hooghly, and those in the north (Teesta, Torsa, Jaldhaka, Mahananda, Raidak, Sankosh) drain the Himalaya and flow south and east into Bangladesh.

River	Where it flows in West Bengal	Note
Ganga	Murshidabad and Malda boundary, then splits	Main channel enters Bangladesh as the Padma
Bhagirathi-Hooghly	Murshidabad to Sagar Island	The distributary on which Kolkata and Howrah stand; Farakka Barrage feeds it
Teesta	Darjeeling hills, Jalpaiguri	Cuts deep gorges, flows into Bangladesh; flood-prone
Torsa, Jaldhaka, Raidak, Sankosh	Dooars, Cooch Behar	Himalayan rivers draining into Brahmaputra system
Mahananda	Darjeeling, Uttar Dinajpur, Malda	Rises in the Darjeeling hills
Damodar	Purulia border to Hooghly	Once called the "sorrow of Bengal" for floods; tamed by the Damodar Valley Corporation dams
Ajay	Birbhum and Bardhaman	Tributary on the west bank of the Bhagirathi-Hooghly
Mayurakshi	Birbhum, Murshidabad	Mayurakshi dam at Massanjore
Kangsabati (Kansai)	Purulia, Bankura, Medinipur	Kangsabati reservoir project
Rupnarayan	Medinipur, Howrah	Meets the Hooghly

Climate

The climate is tropical savanna (warm-humid) over most of the south and west, and humid subtropical in the north. There are four seasons: summer (March to May), the south-west monsoon (June to September), a short autumn and a mild winter. Summers in the western highlands reach 38 to 45 degrees C, the plains see average winter temperatures near 15 degrees C, and the Darjeeling hills are cold, with occasional snow. Early summer brings Kal-baisakhi, short violent thunderstorms from the north-west, and the Bay of Bengal sends cyclones in the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon months. Rainfall is lowest in the west (Purulia, Bankura) and heaviest in the Himalayan Terai and Dooars, which receive heavy monsoon rain; exact district rainfall figures were not verified here.

Soils

Alluvial soils cover most of the state: new alluvium in north Bengal and the Ganga plains, old alluvium and laterite in Rarh and the west, saline and silt-heavy deltaic soils in the south, and sandy clay in the Terai. The laterite uplands of Purulia, Bankura and west Medinipur are reddish and poor in nutrients, while the alluvium supports high yields of rice and jute.

Forests and mangroves

Forests cover a small share of the state; Wikipedia gives about 14 per cent of the area, below the national figure of about 33 per cent (a figure that needs updating against the latest India State of Forest Report). The two main forest regions are the Dooars and Himalayan forests in the north (sal, sissoo, teak) and the Sundarbans in the south. According to the India State of Forest Report 2023, as relayed by secondary sources, West Bengal holds about 42 per cent of India's mangrove cover. The Indian part of the Sundarbans covers a broad delta of islands and tidal creeks in South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas. The Sundarban Tiger Reserve has a total area of 2,585 sq km; the national park is 1,330.1 sq km (declared 1984), and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and as a Ramsar wetland in January 2019.

Minerals

Coal accounts for most of the value of mining. The Raniganj and Asansol belt in Paschim Bardhaman (and parts of Birbhum) is the oldest Indian coalfield, with commercial mining from 1774 by the East India Company in Raniganj (the starting year is reported). One secondary source states that the state is the third-largest coal producer, but we have not confirmed the share. Smaller deposits include china clay, fireclay, limestone, dolomite, wolframite, copper and manganese. Purulia and Bankura have the main hard-rock minerals; detailed production figures are in the economy section of the full guide.

Wildlife and protected areas

The Sundarbans is home to the Bengal tiger; a 2022 survey by the National Tiger Conservation Authority reported 100 unique tigers photographed. The Dooars are famous for the Indian one-horned rhinoceros and the Asian elephant; the Singalila and Neora Valley areas shelter the red panda. Wikipedia lists six national parks and fifteen wildlife sanctuaries covering about 4 per cent of the state (counts differ by source).

Protected area	District	Area (sq km)	Note
Sundarbans National Park	South 24 Parganas	1,330.1	Tiger reserve 2,585 sq km; UNESCO 1987
Buxa Tiger Reserve	Alipurduar	760	Tiger reserve since 1983; national park area 117.1 sq km
Jaldapara National Park	Alipurduar	216.5	Largest rhino population in the state
Gorumara National Park	Jalpaiguri	about 80	Declared national park in 1992 per Wikipedia; sanctuary from 1949
Singalila National Park	Darjeeling	78.6	Trekking to Sandakphu; red panda; sanctuary 1986, national park 1992
Neora Valley National Park	Kalimpong	88	Established 1986; elevation 183 to 3,200 m

For exam preparation

• West Bengal's area is 88,752 sq km; it lies between about 21°25'N-27°13'N and 85°50'E-89°50'E.
• It borders Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan and five Indian states: Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim and Assam.
• Sandakphu (3,636 m) in the Singalila range is the highest point; the Teesta, Torsa and Jaldhaka drain north Bengal.
• The Ganga splits near Farakka; the Hooghly reaches the sea at Sagar Island; the Damodar was called the "sorrow of Bengal".
• The Sundarbans National Park covers 1,330.1 sq km and became a World Heritage Site in 1987; the tiger reserve covers 2,585 sq km.
• Raniganj in Paschim Bardhaman is the state's main coalfield; the state has six national parks including Buxa, Jaldapara, Gorumara, Singalila, Neora Valley and Sundarbans.

Administration and districts

West Bengal has a four-level administrative structure: the state is divided into divisions (each under a commissioner), districts (each under a district magistrate), subdivisions and community development blocks. As on October 2026 the state has 23 notified districts grouped in 5 divisions: Presidency, Burdwan, Malda, Jalpaiguri and Medinipur. The 2026-27 state budget announced on 22 June 2026 proposed five new districts, but we could not confirm that they have been notified, so the count of 23 remains the safe figure.

Divisions

Division	Districts
Presidency	Howrah, Kolkata, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas
Burdwan	Birbhum, Hooghly, Paschim Bardhaman, Purba Bardhaman
Malda	Dakshin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Uttar Dinajpur
Jalpaiguri	Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong
Medinipur	Bankura, Jhargram, Paschim Medinipur, Purba Medinipur, Purulia

Divisional headquarters and formation years were not confirmed.

The 23 districts

The table gives each district's headquarters, division, Census 2011 population on current boundaries (in lakh, one lakh being 100,000) and area. Population and area are compiled from Wikipedia's district list and cross-checked by adding them up: the 23 populations sum to 91,276,116, which matches the state total of 91,276,115 within one person. Boundaries of Darjeeling, Bardhaman, Medinipur and Jalpaiguri changed after 2011; the figures are re-allotted to the new districts.

District	HQ	Division	Pop. 2011 (lakh)	Area (sq km)
Alipurduar	Alipurduar	Jalpaiguri	14.9	3,136
Bankura	Bankura	Medinipur	36.0	6,882
Birbhum	Suri	Burdwan	35.0	4,545
Cooch Behar	Cooch Behar	Jalpaiguri	28.2	3,387
Dakshin Dinajpur	Balurghat	Malda	16.8	2,219
Darjeeling	Darjeeling	Jalpaiguri	16.0	3,149
Hooghly	Chinsura	Burdwan	55.2	3,149
Howrah	Howrah	Presidency	48.5	1,467
Jalpaiguri	Jalpaiguri	Jalpaiguri	23.8	3,386
Jhargram	Jhargram	Medinipur	11.4	3,038
Kalimpong	Kalimpong	Jalpaiguri	2.5	1,044
Kolkata	Kolkata	Presidency	45.0	206
Malda	English Bazar	Malda	39.9	3,733
Murshidabad	Baharampur	Malda	71.0	5,324
Nadia	Krishnanagar	Presidency	51.7	3,927
North 24 Parganas	Barasat	Presidency	100.1	4,094
Paschim Bardhaman	Asansol	Burdwan	28.8	1,603
Paschim Medinipur	Medinipur	Medinipur	47.8	6,308
Purba Bardhaman	Bardhaman	Burdwan	48.4	5,433
Purba Medinipur	Tamluk	Medinipur	51.0	4,785
Purulia	Purulia	Medinipur	29.3	6,259
South 24 Parganas	Alipore	Presidency	81.6	9,960
Uttar Dinajpur	Raiganj	Malda	30.1	3,140

North 24 Parganas is the most populous district (over 10 million), and South 24 Parganas is the largest by area. Kolkata is the densest, with more than 24,000 people per sq km on the compiled figures. Kalimpong is the least populous.

How the district map was built

The state started in 1947 with about 14 districts. Since then it has grown by splitting existing districts and by adding territory:

Year	Change
19 January 1950	Cooch Behar added as a district after merger of the princely state
1 November 1956	Purulia formed from the transferred part of Bihar's Manbhum district
1 March 1986	24 Parganas split into North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas
1 April 1992	West Dinajpur split into Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur
1 January 2002	Midnapore split into Paschim Medinipur and Purba Medinipur
2014	Alipurduar carved out of Jalpaiguri
2017	Kalimpong (from Darjeeling), Jhargram (from Paschim Medinipur) and the split of Bardhaman into Paschim Bardhaman and Purba Bardhaman

Treat the years as reliable; exact dates were not all confirmed.

New districts proposed in 2026. The 2026-27 budget, presented to the state assembly on 22 June 2026, proposed five new districts. A Uniindia report calls it a proposal "to improve administrative efficiency and strengthen security arrangements", and several secondary sources name them as Kolkata (reorganised), Basirhat, Sundarban, Jangipur and Arambagh. Wikipedia's district pages already count 27 districts. Our own check found news only of the budget proposal, not of a gazette notification. We therefore keep the official count at 23 and flag the proposal as reported. Check Current Affairs for the latest.

Urban and rural local bodies

Rural West Bengal has a three-tier panchayat system under the West Bengal Panchayat Act, 1973, which came into force in June 1978, when the first elections were held. The three tiers are the gram panchayat (village), the panchayat samiti (block) and the zilla parishad (district). A CAG audit report records, as on April 2013, 3,349 gram panchayats, 341 panchayat samitis and 17 zilla parishads, plus one Mahakuma Parishad. Those numbers are old, and the zilla parishad count has risen with new districts, so treat them as dated. Municipal areas are outside the panchayat system.

Urban areas are run by municipal corporations and municipalities. The same audit literature records 120 municipalities under the West Bengal Municipal Act, 1993, and six municipal corporations under their own acts. The corporations include Kolkata, Howrah, Durgapur, Asansol, Siliguri and Bidhannagar, and some lists add Chandernagore; the latest total is not confirmed here.

Special areas: no Fifth or Sixth Schedule

Unlike Jharkhand, Odisha or Assam, West Bengal has no Fifth Schedule or Sixth Schedule areas; tribal habitations are not scheduled areas. Its special arrangement is for the Darjeeling hills. After the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (1988), the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) was set up by a tripartite agreement (2011-12) as an autonomous body with 45 elected members and 5 nominated ones. Its powers are limited, with the district magistrate still holding key functions. The demand for a separate Gorkhaland state is a long-running political issue covered in the later political section.

For exam preparation

• As on October 2026 West Bengal has 23 notified districts and 5 divisions; five more were proposed in the 22 June 2026 budget (notification not confirmed).
• The divisions are Presidency, Burdwan, Malda, Jalpaiguri and Medinipur.
• Latest districts: Alipurduar (2014); Kalimpong, Jhargram, Paschim Bardhaman and Purba Bardhaman (2017).
• North 24 Parganas is the most populous district; South 24 Parganas is the largest by area; Kolkata is the most densely populated.
• Panchayat system: three tiers under the West Bengal Panchayat Act, 1973, first elections in 1978.
• There are no Fifth or Sixth Schedule areas; the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration covers parts of the Darjeeling hills.

Demography

At Census 2011 West Bengal had 91,276,115 people, about 7.5 per cent of India, a density of about 1,028 per sq km and a decadal growth of 13.84 per cent. It is a highly populated, majority-Bengali, mostly rural state, with large Muslim and Adivasi minorities. Census 2011 remains the latest published census, and the next one (planned for 2027) has not been published.

Census 2011 at a glance

Indicator	Figure (Census 2011)
Population	91,276,115 (males 46,809,027; females 44,467,088)
Share of India	about 7.5%
Decadal growth, 2001-11	13.84%
Density	about 1,028 per sq km (provisional figure 1,029)
Sex ratio	950 females per 1,000 males (provisional 947)
Child sex ratio (0-6)	956
Literacy	76.26% (male 81.69%, female 70.54%); provisional figure 77.08%
Urban population	31.87% (rural 68.13%)
Scheduled Tribe population	about 5.3 million, 5.8% of the state
Largest city	Kolkata, about 4.5 million (city proper)

Many websites still quote provisional 2011 numbers (91,347,736 people, sex ratio 947, literacy 77.08%); the final figures above are safer.

Languages

The state's official languages are Bengali and English; Nepali is an official language in the Darjeeling hills subdivisions, and the state recognises several others in specified areas (Hindi, Urdu, Santali, Odia, Punjabi and others, per Wikipedia). At Census 2011, Bengali was the mother tongue of about 86.2 per cent of the people (78,698,852 speakers on one count; another compilation gives 85.6 per cent on a smaller base). The next largest mother tongues are Hindi (reported at 5 to 7 per cent, with sources disagreeing on the base), Santali (about 2.65 per cent), Urdu (about 1.8 per cent) and Nepali (about 1.3 per cent), followed by Odia and others. The census recorded over 200 mother tongues in the state. Santali and Nepali are both Eighth Schedule languages.

Religion

Religion (Census 2011)	Share
Hindu	70.54% (about 64.4 million)
Muslim	27.01% (about 24.6 million)
Christian	0.72%
Buddhist	0.31%
Sikh	0.07%
Jain	0.07%

Hindus are in a majority in 20 of the 23 current districts; Murshidabad, Malda and Uttar Dinajpur have a Muslim majority. Buddhists and Christians are concentrated in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and the Dooars. The Hindu share was 78.9 per cent in 1951 and 70.5 per cent in 2011, and the Muslim share 19.5 per cent in 1951 and 27.0 per cent in 2011; the 1947 partition and migration shaped the early figures.

Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes

The Scheduled Tribe population was about 5.3 million (5.8 per cent) at Census 2011. The largest tribe is the Santal, followed by the Oraon, Munda and Bhumij; most live in the western districts of Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram and Paschim Medinipur, and in Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Dakshin Dinajpur, with the Lepcha, Bhutia and Sherpa in the hills. The Toto of Jaldapara and the Lodha and Birhor of the west are among the small groups identified as particularly vulnerable; the exact list was not verified here. The Scheduled Caste share is a little under a quarter of the population, with large Rajbanshi, Namasudra and Bagdi communities; we do not give an exact percentage because we could not confirm it in this pass.

Urbanisation and cities

About 32 per cent of the population lived in towns in 2011, close to the national urban share of about 31 per cent, and the state has the largest metropolitan area in eastern India. Kolkata is among India's largest cities; Howrah, Durgapur, Asansol, Siliguri and Bidhannagar are the other main urban centres.

Human development

Wikipedia reports a state Human Development Index of 0.635 ("medium") for 2022; the rank differs between passages, so only the value is shown. Literacy is above the national average (74.04 per cent at Census 2011). NFHS-5 (2019-21) headline indicators were not verified and are left out.

For exam preparation

• Census 2011 population: 91,276,115; decadal growth 13.84 per cent; density about 1,028 per sq km.
• Sex ratio is 950 (final); literacy is 76.26 per cent, with male 81.69 and female 70.54 per cent.
• About 31.87 per cent of residents live in urban areas.
• Bengali is the mother tongue of about 86 per cent; Hindi, Santali, Urdu and Nepali follow.
• Hindus are 70.54 per cent and Muslims 27.01 per cent; Murshidabad, Malda and Uttar Dinajpur have Muslim majorities.
• Scheduled Tribes are about 5.8 per cent of the population; the Santal are the largest tribe.

How the state is governed

West Bengal has a parliamentary system under the Constitution of India: a Governor as constitutional head, a Chief Minister who leads an elected government, and a single-chamber Assembly of 294 members. This section describes structure, which stays the same from one government to the next. Names of sitting office-holders change, so this guide does not list them. For the current Governor, Chief Minister, ministers, Chief Secretary, DGP and Chief Justice, use the official state portal and our current affairs pages. Past office-holders whose tenures have ended are listed later in this part. The capital is Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). The Assembly House stands in the B.B.D. Bagh (Dalhousie Square) area of central Kolkata (Wikipedia). The state was formed in 1947 from the western part of the Bengal Province after Partition; the history part of this guide covers that.

The executive

Office	Role	How filled
Governor	Constitutional head; summons, prorogues and dissolves the Assembly, gives assent to bills, appoints the Chief Minister	Appointed by the President for five years, serving at the President's pleasure (Articles 153 to 156)
Chief Minister	Head of the government; leads the council of ministers	Leader of the party or alliance that commands a majority in the Assembly, appointed by the Governor (Article 164)
Council of ministers	Runs the departments; collectively responsible to the Assembly	Capped at 15 per cent of the House under Article 164(1A), which works out at a maximum of 44 for 294 seats (our calculation: 44.1)
Chief Secretary	Head of the civil service and the secretariat	Senior IAS officer chosen by the government
Director General of Police	Head of the state police	IPS officer, selected under the Supreme Court's Prakash Singh guidelines
Advocate General	Chief legal adviser to the government	Appointed by the Governor under Article 165

The title Chief Minister came into formal use when the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950; Wikipedia's list still describes the 1947 to 1948 holder as a Premier.

Departments and bodies

The government runs through departments under ministers and secretaries. We did not verify which building houses the main secretariat today, so we do not name it. The main constitutional and statutory bodies are:

• the West Bengal Public Service Commission (Articles 315 to 323), which recruits for state civil services;
• the West Bengal State Election Commission (Article 243K), which conducts panchayat and municipal elections;
• the State Finance Commission, the State Human Rights Commission and the State Information Commission; and
• the Lokayukta, covered in the next section.

The Chief Electoral Officer, a senior officer appointed with the approval of the Election Commission of India, runs Assembly and Parliament elections in the state.

The Legislative Council was abolished with effect from 1 August 1969 (Wikipedia, citing the West Bengal Legislative Council (Abolition) Act, 1969). The state has also had four spells of President's Rule under Article 356 between 1968 and 1977, covered below.

For exam preparation

• The Governor is appointed by the President; the Chief Minister is appointed by the Governor.
• The council of ministers is capped at 15 per cent of the House under Article 164(1A), inserted by the 91st Amendment (2003); for 294 seats the cap is 44.
• The Advocate General is covered by Article 165; the Governor's powers by Articles 153 to 167.
• The Public Service Commission is a constitutional body under Articles 315 to 323; the State Election Commission comes under Article 243K.
• The West Bengal Legislative Council was abolished on 1 August 1969; the state is unicameral.
• The capital is Kolkata; the Assembly sits in the B.B.D. Bagh area.

Legislature, Parliament and judiciary

West Bengal has a single-chamber legislature, the Vidhan Sabha (Legislative Assembly), of 294 members. There is no Legislative Council. The state sends 16 members to the Rajya Sabha and 42 to the Lok Sabha. The 18th Assembly was elected in April 2026 in two phases (23 and 29 April), with counting on 4 May 2026.

Vidhan Sabha

The Assembly has a five-year term unless dissolved earlier. Its roots lie in a 12-member Legislative Council of the Bengal Presidency created in 1862 (Wikipedia). The first election under universal adult franchise, in 1952, was for 238 seats. Strength rose to 252 in 1957, 262 in 1962 and 280 in 1967, and the House has had 294 seats since the 1972 election (Wikipedia's Elections in West Bengal table; the 1971 election is listed as 280 there). The majority mark is 148.

The number of reserved seats is, to our knowledge, 68 for Scheduled Castes and 16 for Scheduled Tribes, fixed by the 2008 delimitation, but we did not re-check this in the sources opened for this part. We give no live party position. The table below is the result of the April to May 2026 election, as on 4 October 2026.

Party	Seats won, 2026 election
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)	208
All India Trinamool Congress (AITC)	80
Indian National Congress (INC)	2
Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP)	2
Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M))	1
Indian Secular Front (ISF)	1
Total	294

On the first counting day, 4 May 2026, results were declared for 293 seats, with the BJP on 207; the Election Commission ordered a repoll in the Falta seat, held on 21 May with the result on 24 May, which the BJP won, taking its total to 208 (Wikipedia, Scroll and the ECI results page; the Falta winner is our inference from Wikipedia's total of 208, which equals 207 plus one). One Wikipedia summary also shows a "Left Front+" alliance total of 4 and six "other" seats; we could not reconcile that with the party list above, which sums to 294, so we use the party list.

Speakers

The Speaker presides over the House and is elected by members at the first sitting of a new Assembly. Past Speakers are listed later in this part; the incumbent Speaker and Deputy Speaker are not named.

Legislative Council: abolished, revival not complete

The Council was abolished in 1969 (above). The Assembly passed a resolution for re-creating it on 6 July 2021, with 196 of the 265 members present voting in favour (GKToday and news reports). Creating a Council under Article 169 needs a resolution of the Assembly passed by a special majority and then an Act of Parliament. We found no Act of Parliament and did not confirm what happened to the proposal after 2026. Treat the state as unicameral.

Rajya Sabha

West Bengal elects 16 members, who serve six-year terms and are chosen by MLAs through the single transferable vote. Terms are staggered, so seats fall due in batches. We have not listed members.

Lok Sabha

The state has 42 constituencies. To our knowledge ten are reserved for Scheduled Castes and two for Scheduled Tribes; we did not re-check these figures and we do not list members or constituency names.

High Court

The Calcutta High Court sits in Kolkata and has jurisdiction over West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Wikipedia). It is described as the oldest High Court in India; Wikipedia gives its establishment as 1 July 1862 by Letters Patent. Its Gothic Revival main building was completed in 1872 (Wikipedia). It has two circuit benches: a permanent one at Port Blair, and one at Jalpaiguri, created by a presidential order whose effective date is given as 7 February 2019 in one source we saw; that bench handles cases from Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar districts (SCC Online, Legitquest). Wikipedia reports a sanctioned strength of 72 judges (54 permanent and 18 additional); the Centre can revise this figure and we did not confirm it on the court's own website. Below it are district and sessions courts. Chief Justices with completed tenures are listed later in this part.

Lokayukta, Election Commission and other bodies

The West Bengal Lokayukta Act, 2003 created the state's anti-corruption ombudsman, the Lokayukta, and came into force on 21 May 2004 (India Code and the Lokayukta's site, via search summaries). The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 required every state to have one; we did not verify whether the state later changed its law. The State Election Commission, under Article 243K, conducts panchayat and municipal polls. It is governed by the West Bengal State Election Commission Act, 1994 (India Code listing); one source says it was formed in 1966, and we could not reconcile this, so we give no founding year. The State Election Commissioner can be removed only in the way a High Court judge can be.

For exam preparation

• The Assembly has 294 seats and a majority mark of 148; there is no Legislative Council (abolished 1 August 1969).
• West Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha seats and 16 Rajya Sabha seats.
• The Assembly had 238 seats in 1952, 252 in 1957, 262 in 1962, 280 in 1967, and 294 since 1972.
• The Calcutta High Court dates from 1862 and covers West Bengal and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Circuit benches sit at Port Blair and Jalpaiguri.
• In the 2026 election the BJP won 208 of 294 seats and the AITC 80.

Elections

West Bengal has held 17 Assembly elections between 1952 and 2021, plus an 18th in 2026 (counting 1969, 1971 and 1972 separately because of the political crisis of those years). The Congress won the first four (1952 to 1967 by seats) and the 1972 election. The CPI(M)-led Left Front then won seven in a row (1977 to 2006), a 34-year run that ended in 2011. The All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) won in 2011, 2016 and 2021. In 2026 the BJP won 208 of 294 seats, its first Assembly majority in the state. Turnout in 2026 was reported at 93.71 per cent, which news reports described as the highest in any Indian election since Independence.

Vidhan Sabha elections, 1952 to 2026

Seat counts are from Wikipedia's election pages and its Elections in West Bengal table, cross-checked against ECI for 2026. "Share" is the vote share; "n/c" means not confirmed, and we leave out figures we could not confirm. For Left Front years we give the Left Front total with CPI(M) seats in brackets. For 1952 to 1962 only the winner's seats are given.

Year	Seats	Largest party (seats, share)	Runner-up (seats)	Government formed	Turnout
1952	238	INC 150	CPI 28	INC	n/c
1957	252	INC 152	CPI 46	INC	n/c
1962	262	INC 157	CPI 50	INC	n/c
1967	280	INC 127 (41.13%)	CPI(M) 43	United Front, first non-Congress government	n/c
1969	280	CPI(M) 80 (19.97%)	INC 55 (41.32%)	United Front	66.51%
1971	280	CPI(M) 113 (32.9%)	INC(R) 105	Short-lived, then President's Rule	62.03%
1972	294	INC(R) 216 (49.08%)	CPI 35	INC(R)	60.82%
1977	294	Left Front 231 (178; 35.46%)	Janata Party 29	Left Front	56.15%
1982	294	Left Front 238 (174; 52.7%)	INC(I) 49	Left Front	76.96%
1987	294	Left Front 251 (187; 52.96%)	INC(I) 40	Left Front	n/c
1991	294	Left Front 245 (182)	INC 43	Left Front	76.8%
1996	294	Left Front 203 (153; 49.17%)	Congress and allies 85	Left Front	82.94%
2001	294	Left Front 196 (143)	AITC 60	Left Front	75.29%
2006	294	Left Front 235 (176; CPI(M) 37.13%)	AITC 30	Left Front	81.97%
2011	294	AITC 184 (38.93%)	INC 42	AITC-INC alliance	about 84.3%
2016	294	AITC 211 (44.91%)	INC 44	AITC	83.02%
2021	294	AITC 215 (48.02%)	BJP 77 (37.97%)	AITC	82.3%
2026	294	BJP 208 (45.92%)	AITC 80 (40.68%)	BJP	93.71%

Notes:

• 1969: the CPI(M) was the largest party by seats, the INC by vote share; the United Front won 214 seats with 49.7 per cent and formed the government.
• 1996: Wikipedia's election page gives the CPI(M) as 157, its Elections in West Bengal table 153; we use 153 and mark the conflict. The Left Front total of 203 matches in both.
• 2011: the CPI(M) won 40 seats (reported), and with the INC's 42 the alliance had 226 seats if the INC is added to the AITC's 184 (our sum). Turnout is implied by Wikipedia's 2016 page (83.02 per cent, a fall of 1.31 points); the 2011 page says "over 84 per cent".
• 2016: the CPI(M) won 26 seats and the BJP 3 (BJP share 10.14 per cent).
• 2021: the remaining two seats went to others (reported).
• Left Front vote shares for 1991 and 2001 looked inconsistent across sources and are left out.

The 1967 to 1972 period

Between 1967 and 1972 the state had three Assembly elections, four ministries and three spells of President's Rule (Wikipedia). In 1967 the Congress won 127 of 280 seats but fell short of a majority, and a United Front led by the Bangla Congress, including the CPI(M), formed the first non-Congress government. It fell in November 1967. President's Rule ran from 20 February 1968 to 25 February 1969, after which the United Front won the 9 February 1969 mid-term election with 214 seats. That government lasted until March 1970. The second President's Rule ended on 2 April 1971; sources differ on its start (one list says 30 July 1970, a report says March 1970, right after the Chief Minister's resignation on 16 March 1970, which we mark as reported). The March 1971 election gave the CPI(M) 113 seats and the Congress (R) 105. A short government held office from 2 April to 28 June 1971, and President's Rule was imposed again from 29 June 1971 to 20 March 1972. The March 1972 election was a Congress (R) landslide; 14 CPI(M) members elected then refused to take their seats, alleging rigging (Wikipedia; an allegation, not established).

The Left Front era, 1977 to 2011

The Left Front, a pre-poll alliance of the CPI(M), Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party and smaller Left parties, won the 14 June 1977 election with 231 seats and 35.46 per cent (Wikipedia), and the government was sworn in on 21 June 1977. In 1987 it won 251 seats while the Congress (I) polled 41.81 per cent, its best share but the last time it fought alone. In 1996 the Left Front won 203 seats, which Wikipedia calls its first major setback, with losses in Calcutta and the industrial belt. The 2006 election was the high point, with 235 seats. Wikipedia describes the 34 years as "the world's longest-running democratically elected Communist government", which we report as its description, not ours.

2011

The election was held in six phases from 18 April to 10 May, with counting on 13 May 2011. The AITC, allied with the Congress, won 184 seats on its own. The Left Front's total fell sharply, and the CPI(M) won 40. The Chief Minister of the day lost his own seat, only the second to do so in the state's history (Wikipedia). The new government took office on 20 May 2011. The land disputes at Singur and Nandigram (2006 to 2008) are seen as part of the background.

2016 and 2021

In 2016 (six phases, 4 April to 5 May; 83.02 per cent turnout; about 6.59 crore electors) the AITC won 211 seats, 27 more than in 2011. The Left and Congress contested together; the Congress won 44 seats with 12.25 per cent and became the main opposition. In 2021 (eight phases, 27 March to 29 April, with two seats polled on 30 September; 82.3 per cent turnout; about 7.34 crore electors) the AITC won 215 seats and the BJP 77, up from 3. For the first time neither the Congress nor the CPI(M) won a seat (Wikipedia).

2026

Polling was in two phases: 23 April 2026 for 152 constituencies and 29 April for 142, with counting on 4 May. About 3.5 lakh security personnel were deployed across 85,379 polling booths (Wikipedia; reported). Turnout was 93.71 per cent, up 11.41 points on 2021, among about 6.84 crore registered electors (Wikipedia; another summary gives 6.38 crore, which we could not reconcile, so treat the elector number as approximate). The BJP won 207 seats on 4 May and 208 after the Falta repoll, with 45.92 per cent (2.94 crore votes). The AITC won 80 seats with 40.68 per cent (2.60 crore votes). The Congress won 2, the Aam Janata Unnayan Party 2, the CPI(M) 1 and the ISF 1. The Assembly was dissolved on 7 May and the new government took office on 9 May 2026 (reported). The result ended the AITC's three consecutive terms and gave the BJP its first government in the state. We record the outcome and do not assess it.

Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll

Before the 2026 election the Election Commission carried out a Special Intensive Revision of the rolls in West Bengal. A draft roll was published on 9 December 2025, with claims and objections to 8 January 2026. The final roll was due on 7 February and, following a Supreme Court order, the date was extended to 28 February 2026 (News On Air). Reports put the names removed at about 91 lakh, about 12 per cent of the earlier electorate, citing death, shifting and duplicates, and some sources said about 27 lakh entries stayed under adjudication. Opposition parties criticised the process and the Commission defended it as roll clean-up; we report both and do not judge them. Because 2026 turnout is measured against the post-SIR roll, compare it with 2021 with care.

Lok Sabha elections, 1999 to 2024

Year	Largest party (seats)	Runner-up (seats)	Total
1999	CPI(M) 21	AITC 8	42
2004	CPI(M) 26	INC 6	42
2009	AITC 19	CPI(M) 9	42
2014	AITC 34	INC 4	42
2019	AITC 22	BJP 18	42
2024	AITC 29	BJP 12	42

The 2024 election was held in seven phases, 19 April to 1 June, with counting on 4 June. The AITC won 29 seats with 46.2 per cent, the BJP 12 with 39.1 per cent and the Congress 1; turnout was 79.59 per cent (Wikipedia). Lok Sabha results do not always mirror Assembly results in the state: the BJP won 12 Lok Sabha seats in 2024, then 208 Assembly seats in 2026.

By-elections

• 2021: the Bhabanipur by-election (30 September 2021, about 53 per cent turnout) was won by the AITC by 58,389 votes, along with Samserganj and Jangipur, polled late; four more seats, including Dinhata and Santipur, followed in October 2021 (news reports, Wikipedia).
• 2023: the Congress won Sagardighi from the AITC (Wikipedia).
• November 2024: six seats polled on 13 November (Madarihat, Sitai, Naihati, Haroa, Medinipur, Taldangra); the AITC won all six (news reports).
• As on 4 October 2026, two by-elections were scheduled for 6 October 2026 for seats vacated after the general election (Wikipedia). We do not report results.

Panchayat and municipal elections

Rural local government has three tiers: the gram panchayat, the panchayat samiti (block) and the zilla parishad (district). Elections are conducted by the State Election Commission.

2018. Polling on 14 May 2018. Wikipedia's table gives the AITC 38,118 gram panchayat seats, the BJP 5,779, the Left Front 1,713 and the Congress 1,066; in panchayat samitis the AITC won 8,062 seats. Turnout is reported at 82.13 per cent. Wikipedia says about one-third of seats were won without a contest because rival candidates could not file nominations, and reports widespread violence; the ruling party has disputed such accounts, so we treat them as reported.

2023. Polling on 8 July 2023 for 63,229 gram panchayat, 9,730 panchayat samiti and 928 zilla parishad seats (news reports). The Calcutta High Court ordered central forces on polling and counting days. Reports of deaths on polling day range from 11 to 13, and the AITC and BJP blamed each other. The State Election Commission ordered repolls in 696 booths or seats (sources say "seats"). We did not confirm the final tally by party and give none.

2022 municipal elections. Held on 27 February 2022 in 108 municipalities, counting on 2 March, with four wards polled on 26 June (Wikipedia). The AITC won 102 municipalities, 1,977 wards and 63 per cent of the vote. The CPI(M) won Taherpur and the newly formed Hamro Party won Darjeeling. The BJP won no municipality (13 per cent; second in 63 wards) and the Congress won 59 wards. Turnout was 76.5 per cent. Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls are separate and we did not verify them. The Darjeeling hills body, the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), held elections in 2012 and on 26 June 2022.

Reservation, delimitation and voters

• Reserved seats in the Assembly and Lok Sabha come from the 2008 Delimitation Commission order, first used in 2009 and 2011 (our knowledge; not re-checked). Further delimitation waits for a census after 2026, so 294 and 42 are fixed for now.
• Panchayats must reserve at least one-third of seats for women under Article 243D; we did not verify any higher state figure.
• The electorate grew from about 76 lakh in 1951 (7,635,066, per a news summary of ECI data) to roughly 6.4 to 6.8 crore in 2026. We did not confirm the sex ratio of electors.

Records and firsts

• 1967: first non-Congress government (Wikipedia).
• 1977 to 2011: Left Front rule for 34 years; one Chief Minister served 23 years 138 days, the longest in the state.
• 2011: first woman Chief Minister.
• 2021: first Assembly with no Congress or CPI(M) MLA.
• 2026: first BJP majority; reported record turnout of 93.71 per cent.

For exam preparation

• The Left Front won seven Assembly elections in a row, 1977 to 2006; the AITC won in 2011 (184 seats), 2016 (211) and 2021 (215).
• In 2026 the BJP won 208 of 294 seats (majority mark 148) and the AITC 80.
• Turnout in 2026 was 93.71 per cent, reported as the highest ever in an Indian election; polling was on 23 and 29 April, with a Falta repoll on 21 May.
• The SIR draft roll came out on 9 December 2025; the final date was extended to 28 February 2026.
• In 2024 the AITC won 29 Lok Sabha seats and the BJP 12.
• In the 2022 municipal polls the AITC won 102 of 108 municipalities.

Past Chief Ministers, Governors and office-holders

This section lists only people whose tenures have ended. The incumbent in each office is shown as "Incumbent" and not named; see current affairs. Dates are from Wikipedia's lists. Where the lists conflict we mark the entry as reported.

Chief Ministers

Name	Party	Tenure	Notes
Prafulla Chandra Ghosh	INC	15 August 1947 to 23 January 1948	First head of government of West Bengal (listed as Premier)
Bidhan Chandra Roy	INC	23 January 1948 to 1 July 1962	Died in office; longest Congress tenure
Prafulla Chandra Sen	INC	2 July 1962 to 1 March 1967	Last Congress Chief Minister before 1967
Ajoy Mukherjee	Bangla Congress	1 March 1967 to 21 November 1967; 25 February 1969 to March 1970; 2 April to 28 June 1971	First non-Congress Chief Minister; three spells
Prafulla Chandra Ghosh	Independent	21 November 1967 to 20 February 1968	Second tenure
Siddhartha Shankar Ray	INC	20 March 1972 to 30 April 1977	Wikipedia says he was the first Chief Minister after the 1967 to 1972 turmoil to complete a full term; President's Rule followed on 30 April 1977
Jyoti Basu	CPI(M)	21 June 1977 to 6 November 2000	23 years 138 days; longest tenure in the state; resigned
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee	CPI(M)	6 November 2000 to 20 May 2011	Lost his own seat in 2011
Mamata Banerjee	AITC	20 May 2011 to 7 May 2026	First woman Chief Minister; about 14 years 352 days (Wikipedia)
Incumbent	BJP	Since 9 May 2026	Not named

Points to note:

• President's Rule under Article 356 was in force in West Bengal from 20 February 1968 to 25 February 1969; from March 1970 (sources differ; 30 July 1970 in one list) to 2 April 1971; from 29 June 1971 to 20 March 1972; and from 30 April 1977 to 21 June 1977 (Wikipedia's list of Chief Ministers). We did not open the proclamations.
• Wikipedia's list shows a two-day gap, 7 to 9 May 2026, between dissolution of the Assembly and the new swearing-in, which it labels "Governor's Rule"; we treat it as a transition, not Article 356 rule.

Governors since 1990

Earlier Governors (1947 to 1989) included C. Rajagopalachari (1947 to 1948), Padmaja Naidu (1956 to 1967), Dharma Vira (1967 to 1969), Anthony Lancelot Dias (1971 to 1979) and Saiyid Nurul Hasan (1986 to 1989, and again below).

Name	Tenure
T. V. Rajeswar	20 March 1989 to 7 February 1990
Saiyid Nurul Hasan (second spell)	7 February 1990 to 12 July 1993
K. V. Raghunatha Reddy	14 August 1993 to 27 April 1998
Akhlaqur Rahman Kidwai	27 April 1998 to 18 May 1999
Viren J. Shah	4 December 1999 to 14 December 2004
Gopalkrishna Gandhi	14 December 2004 to 14 December 2009
M. K. Narayanan	24 January 2010 to 30 June 2014
Keshari Nath Tripathi	24 July 2014 to 29 July 2019
Jagdeep Dhankhar	30 July 2019 to 17 July 2022 (resigned to become Vice President)
C. V. Ananda Bose	18 November 2022 to 12 March 2026
Incumbent	Since 12 March 2026

Gaps between dates in this table were probably filled by acting Governors, which the table we opened did not show.

Speakers of the Assembly

Name	Tenure
Ishwar Das Jalan	21 November 1947 to 19 June 1952
Saila Kumar Mukherjee	20 June 1952 to 20 March 1957
Sankar Das Banerji	4 June 1957 to 15 May 1959
Bankim Chandra Kar	22 February 1960 to 11 March 1962
Keshab Chandra Basu	12 March 1962 to 7 March 1967
Bijoy Kumar Banerjee	8 March 1967 to 2 May 1971
Apurba Lal Majumdar	3 May 1971 to 23 June 1977
Syed Abdul Mansur Habibullah	24 June 1977 to 13 June 1982
Hashim Abdul Halim	14 June 1982 to 29 May 2011 (nearly 29 years; longest)
Biman Banerjee	30 May 2011 to 15 May 2026
Incumbent	Since 15 May 2026

Chief Justices of the Calcutta High Court

Name	Tenure
Arthur Trevor Harries	1946 to 12 June 1952
Phani Bhusan Chakravartti	1952 to 1958
Kulada Charan Das Gupta	1958 to 1959
Surajit Chandra Lahiri	1959 to 1961
Himansu Kumar Bose	1961 to 1966
Deep Narayan Sinha	1966 to 1970
Prasanta Bihari Mukharji	1970 to 1972
Sankar Prasad Mitra	1972 to 1979 (reported as the longest-serving)
Amarendra Nath Sen	1979 to 1981
Sambhu Chandra Ghose	1981 to 1983
Satish Chandra	1983 to 1986
Incumbent	Not named

We could not open a list for Chief Justices after 1986, so this list stops there; short acting spells are left out. Phani Bhusan Chakravartti was also an acting Governor in 1956 (Wikipedia).

For exam preparation

• Bidhan Chandra Roy served from 1948 until his death in office on 1 July 1962.
• Ajoy Mukherjee, of the Bangla Congress, headed the first non-Congress government (1967).
• Siddhartha Shankar Ray was Chief Minister from 1972 to April 1977.
• Jyoti Basu served 23 years and 138 days (1977 to 2000), the longest in the state's history.
• Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee succeeded him on 6 November 2000.
• The first woman Chief Minister took office on 20 May 2011 and served until 7 May 2026.
• Hashim Abdul Halim was Speaker for nearly 29 years, 1982 to 2011.
• President's Rule was imposed in 1968, 1970, 1971 and 1977.

Political history and movements

West Bengal's politics has been shaped by the Partition of 1947, an unusually long period of unstable coalition government between 1967 and 1972, a 34-year Left Front government, and land and industry disputes that helped change the government in 2011. In 2026 the BJP won the Assembly for the first time. This section describes events and does not judge parties or leaders.

The United Front and the 1967 to 1972 crisis

In 1967 the Congress lost its majority and a coalition of parties led by the Bangla Congress and including the CPI(M) formed the first non-Congress government on 1 March 1967 (Wikipedia). Coalition changes, defections and President's Rule marked the next five years (see Elections above). A Congress (Requisitionists) government, elected by a landslide in March 1972, governed until April 1977.

Naxalbari, 1967

The Naxalbari movement began in March 1967 in the Naxalbari block of Siliguri subdivision, Darjeeling district, just after the United Front took office. About 150 peasants reportedly began seizing land and grain from landlords on 3 March 1967, led by Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santhal and Charu Majumdar (Wikipedia). On 25 May 1967 police fired on a crowd, and Wikipedia reports ten dead, nine women and a child. The government suppressed the uprising by July using paramilitary forces. The movement led directly to the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, and the term Naxalite came to describe the wider armed Left movement that spread to other states.

Land reforms and Operation Barga

After 1977 the Left Front's rural policy rested on land reform and panchayats. Operation Barga began in 1978 and recorded the names of sharecroppers (bargadars) so that they had legal protection against eviction and a fixed share of the crop, under the Bengal Land Holding Revenue Act 1979 and the 1980 rules (Wikipedia). Wikipedia reports about 1.2 million sharecroppers recorded by the end of 1982 and about 1.46 million by June 1994. A 2003 survey found 14.37 per cent of registered bargadars had been dispossessed (Wikipedia). These are one source's figures.

Singur and Nandigram, 2006 to 2008

In 2006 the state government acquired about 997 acres at Singur, Hooghly district, under the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for a Tata Motors small-car plant. Farmers protested, and the opposition led by the AITC campaigned against the acquisition. On 3 October 2008 the company announced it was leaving Singur, and on 7 October it announced a move to Sanand in Gujarat (Wikipedia). On 31 August 2016 the Supreme Court held the acquisition illegal and ordered land returned to 9,117 landowners.

In Nandigram, East Midnapore, the plan for a chemical hub on a special economic zone of about 10,000 acres met resistance from the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee in early 2007. On 14 March 2007 police fired during an operation, and 14 villagers were officially said to have died, though some estimates of total deaths are far higher (Wikipedia). The zone was dropped. A later CBI inquiry, as Wikipedia reports it, did not hold the then Chief Minister responsible for the shooting. The two events are widely seen as turning points before the 2011 election.

The Gorkhaland movement

Demands for a separate administrative status for the Darjeeling hills date from a 1909 memorandum (Wikipedia). In the 1980s the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) led a violent agitation for Gorkhaland, which ended with the creation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council in 1988. A second movement, led by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha from 2007, led to a Memorandum of Agreement for the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), signed on 18 July 2011 at Pintail Village near Siliguri. The GTA's first election in 2012 was won by the GJM in all 45 contested seats. A major agitation in 2017 led to councillors resigning, and the body was then run by appointed officials; its second election was held on 26 June 2022 (Wikipedia). The GTA is an autonomous administrative body within West Bengal, and the demand for a separate state remains a political demand rather than a settled matter.

From the Left Front to the AITC and the BJP

The Left Front lost the 2011 Assembly election, ending 34 years in office. The AITC governed from 2011 to 2026. The BJP's Assembly seats rose from 3 in 2016 to 77 in 2021 and 208 in 2026; its Lok Sabha seats were 18 in 2019 and 12 in 2024. Panchayat and municipal elections in 2018, 2022 and 2023 were dominated by the AITC, while violence around panchayat polls led to Calcutta High Court orders for central forces in 2023. The 2026 election followed the Special Intensive Revision, which cut the electorate by about 12 per cent (reported).

For exam preparation

• The Naxalbari uprising began in March 1967; police firing on 25 May 1967 killed ten, according to Wikipedia.
• The CPI(ML) was formed in 1969 out of the Naxalbari movement.
• Operation Barga began in 1978 and registered sharecroppers (about 1.2 million by 1982, reported).
• The Tata Nano plant at Singur was abandoned on 3 October 2008; the Supreme Court quashed the acquisition on 31 August 2016.
• Police firing at Nandigram was on 14 March 2007.
• The GTA agreement was signed on 18 July 2011; the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council was created in 1988.
• The Left Front governed from 1977 to 2011.

Budget and governance

West Bengal presented an interim budget on 7 February 2026, before the election, and a full budget for 2026-27 on 22 June 2026, after the change of government. This is as on 4 October 2026; budget figures change at revision, so check the latest. The full budget is the one in force. We do not name the Finance Minister.

Budget for 2026-27, presented 22 June 2026

Item	Figure
Expenditure (excluding debt repayment)	Rs 3,84,169 crore, up 23% on the 2025-26 revised estimate (PRS)
Debt to be repaid	Rs 54,607 crore
Receipts (excluding borrowing)	Rs 3,21,747 crore (PRS summary); PRS's key-features page gives revenue receipts as Rs 3,20,485 crore
Fiscal deficit	Rs 62,421 crore, 2.9% of GSDP (2025-26 revised: 3.4%)
Revenue deficit	Rs 21,984 crore, 1.0% of GSDP (2025-26 revised: 2.1%)
GSDP assumed	Rs 21,48,244 crore, growth of 8% at current prices
Own tax revenue	Rs 1,30,670 crore, up 17%

The interim budget presented on 7 February 2026 had total expenditure of about Rs 3.96 lakh crore, a 14.2 per cent rise over 2025-26, with social services at Rs 1,80,862 crore, or 46 per cent of expenditure (Drishti IAS summary; we did not open the budget papers). The two budgets use different definitions, so the figures should not be compared directly.

Headline allocations

PRS and news summaries list: education Rs 54,798 crore; rural development Rs 24,555 crore (up 132 per cent); water supply Rs 15,402 crore (up 154 per cent). A women's cash-transfer scheme, named Annapurna Bhandar and replacing the earlier Lakshmi Bhandar scheme, was allotted Rs 36,000 crore for Rs 3,000 a month to eligible women (a PRS-based summary; scheme rules were not checked). The budget also announced an extra Rs 3,000 a year to each farmer family on top of the Centre's Rs 6,000, and a one-time grant of Rs 50,000 for girl students, according to the same sources. The monthly threshold for profession tax exemption was raised from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 for salaried staff.

Fiscal indicators and governance

• The deficit targets are in line with the 3 per cent ceiling for 2026 to 2031 set by the 16th Finance Commission, as PRS notes (reported).
• West Bengal's economy was said to have grown 7.6 per cent in 2025-26, with services about 59 per cent of output (PRS summary).
• We did not verify the state's outstanding debt as a share of GSDP, its FRBM targets, or any e-governance, digital-service or administrative-reform claims; those are left out of this part.

For exam preparation

• The interim budget for 2026-27 was presented on 7 February 2026 and the full budget on 22 June 2026 (as on October 2026).
• Full budget: fiscal deficit 2.9 per cent of GSDP (Rs 62,421 crore) and revenue deficit 1.0 per cent (Rs 21,984 crore).
• Total expenditure excluding debt repayment: Rs 3,84,169 crore.
• GSDP assumed for 2026-27: Rs 21,48,244 crore.
• Education received Rs 54,798 crore, and rural development Rs 24,555 crore.

Economy

West Bengal has the sixth-largest state economy in India by output, with a gross state domestic product (GSDP) of roughly ₹20–21 lakh crore in 2025-26 and 2026-27, but its income per person sits below the national leaders. The economy is service-led, built around Kolkata's trade, banking, health and education sectors, with a large agricultural base in the delta districts and an industrial belt running along the Hooghly and through the coalfield towns of Asansol and Durgapur. As on October 2026, the budget figures below come from the PRS Legislative Research analyses of the 2025-26 and 2026-27 state budgets; sector shares and ranks marked "reported" come from a reference page and were not checked against the Economic Review.

Size, growth and income

Indicator	Value	Source / note
GSDP, current prices, 2023-24	About ₹17.19 lakh crore	Reported on a reference page
GSDP, current prices, 2025-26	About ₹20.3 lakh crore (budget estimate, up 12% on 2024-25)	PRS analysis of the 2025-26 budget
GSDP, current prices, 2026-27	About ₹21.48 lakh crore (budget projection)	PRS analysis of the 2026-27 budget
Per capita GSDP, 2025-26	₹1,98,451, up about 9% on the year before	PRS, 2026-27 analysis
Rank by GSDP	Sixth among states	Reported
Sector shares of output, 2026-27	Agriculture about 17%, industry about 30%, services about 53%	Reported; check the Economic Review
Multidimensional poverty, 2022-23	8.6%, against 11.28% for India	NITI Aayog index, reported

"Current prices" means the value in that year's rupees, so part of any rise is inflation. Per capita GSDP is output divided by population and says nothing about how evenly income is shared. The 2026-27 PRS analysis also gives a growth projection for 2026-27; we do not repeat it here because the figure did not reconcile cleanly with the two GSDP levels above. A reference page ranks West Bengal 21st among states on per capita income; we could not confirm that rank from an official source and treat it as not confirmed.

What drives the economy

• Services. Trade, banking, insurance, real estate, health, education and public administration together form more than half of output. Kolkata has a long financial history (the Calcutta Stock Exchange is one of India's oldest), the headquarters of several banks and the largest concentration of private hospitals in eastern India.
• Agriculture and allied sectors. Rice, jute, potato, vegetables and fish make West Bengal one of the leading food-producing states (see the next section). Farming employs far more people than its share of output suggests.
• Industry. Steel, engineering, jute and textile mills, leather and tanneries, petrochemicals at Haldia, coal mining, and small-scale units around Howrah, Hooghly and the 24 Parganas.
• Information technology. Salt Lake's Sector V (Electronics Complex) and New Town, Rajarhat host IT and IT-enabled services parks.
• Leather. A reference page says the state accounts for roughly 22 to 25% of India's tanning activity, centred on the Kolkata leather complex at Bantala; treat this as reported.
• Ports and trade. Kolkata and Haldia ports serve eastern and north-eastern India, Nepal and Bhutan, and Petrapole on the Bangladesh border is among India's busiest land customs stations (see Transport).

Historical background

Calcutta (now Kolkata) was the capital of British India until 1911, and the port, jute and tea trades made Bengal the centre of colonial commerce. Partition in 1947 divided the jute-growing east from the jute mills of the west and sent large numbers of refugees into the state. Freight equalisation on minerals and steel from 1952, which gave other regions cheaper delivery, and decades of labour disputes are often cited as reasons industry slowed from the 1960s. Land reform changed the countryside: Operation Barga, launched in 1978, recorded sharecroppers' tenancy rights and is usually named among the most extensive tenancy reforms in India. Liberalisation after 1991 and later new industrial areas around Kolkata revived services and IT. These are broad historical outlines; for exact dates and figures confirm with the Economic Review.

Public finances

Figures below are PRS's analyses of the state budgets, as on October 2026.

Item	2025-26 (budget estimate)	2026-27 (budget)
Expenditure excluding debt repayment	₹3,41,462 crore	₹3,84,169 crore (up 23% on the 2025-26 revised estimate)
Total expenditure including debt repayment	Not stated here	₹4,38,775 crore (₹54,607 crore is debt repayment)
Revenue deficit	1.7% of GSDP (₹35,315 crore)	₹21,984 crore, about 1% of GSDP
Fiscal deficit	3.6% of GSDP (₹73,178 crore)	₹62,421 crore, 2.9% of GSDP
Own tax revenue	Not stated here	₹1,30,670 crore, up 17%
Outstanding liabilities	Not stated here	38% of GSDP

State GST (₹61,535 crore, about 47% of own tax), state excise (₹24,922 crore) and sales tax or VAT (₹16,421 crore) are the main own-tax sources in 2026-27. The state's fiscal responsibility law (FRBM) sets deficit limits; the figures above show the planned fiscal deficit moving from 3.6% to 2.9% of GSDP. Note that the 2026-27 budget was presented in June 2026 after a change of government, so the 2026-27 figures reflect the new administration's priorities, including a large rise in allocations for women's cash transfers (see Government schemes).

Employment and poverty

West Bengal has a large informal workforce, and a large number of workers migrate to other states for construction, domestic and industrial work. We did not verify a current unemployment rate from the Periodic Labour Force Survey and do not state one. On poverty, the NITI Aayog multidimensional index figure above (8.6% in 2022-23) is the best verified indicator; it counts deprivation in health, education and living standards rather than income alone.

For exam preparation

• West Bengal's GSDP is among the six largest in India (reported sixth).
• Per capita GSDP was ₹1,98,451 in 2025-26 (PRS).
• Services contribute about half or more of state output.
• Operation Barga (1978) was the land-reform programme that recorded sharecroppers' rights.
• Calcutta was the capital of British India until 1911.
• The 2026-27 budget was presented in June 2026; fiscal deficit target 2.9% of GSDP.

Agriculture, forests, minerals, industry and energy

West Bengal is a delta state: fertile alluvium, heavy monsoon rain and a dense river network make it India's largest rice producer and the dominant source of jute, a leading potato and fish producer, and a major tea state in the north. Mineral wealth is concentrated in the Raniganj coalfield and the western plateau, while industry clusters along the Hooghly and in the Durgapur-Asansol belt. Production figures below are as reported on a reference page for recent years and should be checked against the Economic Review before being used as exact numbers.

Crops and production

Crop or product	Position and figure	Where grown
Rice	Largest producer in India, about 16.8 million tonnes, about 13% of national output (reported)	Everywhere; Aman (winter) rice is the main crop, with Aus and Boro seasons
Jute	About 88% of India's output (reported)	Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Cooch Behar, Hooghly
Potato	Second largest producer, about 12 million tonnes, about 20% of national output (reported)	Hooghly, Bardhaman, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura
Fish	Second largest producer, about 20.45 lakh tonnes (reported)	Inland ponds and the Hooghly estuary; Bengal is known for hilsa (ilish) and rohu
Meat	Largest producer, about 1.29 million tonnes in 2023-24 (reported)	Statewide
Tea	Darjeeling, Terai and Dooars together make a large share of Indian tea; the exact share was not confirmed	Darjeeling hills, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Siliguri subdivision
Others	Vegetables, mango (Malda), pineapple, betel leaf, mustard, pulses, tobacco (Cooch Behar), lac and silk (Malda, Murshidabad)	Various districts

Rice has three seasons: Aus (sown in summer), Aman (the main monsoon crop, harvested in winter) and Boro (a dry-season crop grown with irrigation). Jute is a fibre crop that needs standing water for retting, which is why it is concentrated in the low-lying Ganga-Padma delta districts. West Bengal's farms are small: most holdings are marginal, a legacy of land reform and population density. Cropping intensity is high because many fields give two or three crops a year.

Tea

Tea in Darjeeling dates from the mid-19th century, when plantations were set up on the hill slopes under colonial rule. Darjeeling tea was the first Indian product to receive a Geographical Indication tag, in the early 2000s (reported as 2004). The Terai plains and Dooars, in the foothills in the north, grow most of the state's bulk tea, mostly black CTC tea. Plantation workers live in labour lines on the estates, and wages and estate closures remain a recurring issue.

Fisheries and animal resources

Fish is a staple of the Bengali diet. Hilsa moves up the Hooghly in the monsoon. Shrimp and prawn farming is practised in the Sundarbans fringe and East Midnapore. The East Kolkata Wetlands, a Ramsar site since 2002, use city sewage to run fish ponds and vegetable plots, a system known internationally.

Forests and wildlife cover

Forest cover is a little under one-fifth of the state area (about 19%, reported from the India State of Forest Report series; confirm the latest edition), with the Sundarbans mangroves, the Himalayan forests of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri, the Dooars grasslands and the dry sal forests of Jhargram, Bankura and Purulia as the main types. West Bengal has the largest mangrove cover in India, nearly all in the Sundarbans. Reserve and park details are in the tourism section.

Minerals

The Raniganj coalfield in Paschim Bardhaman, mined from the late 18th century, gave India its first commercial coal mining (1774, reported). Eastern Coalfields Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India, operates in this belt, with its headquarters at Sanctoria near Asansol. Other minerals include china clay, fireclay, dolomite, apatite and some stone chips; a reference page also mentions tungsten in Bankura, which we treat as reported. West Bengal has no major iron ore or bauxite; iron and steel plants depend on ore brought in from Odisha and Jharkhand.

Industry

• Steel. The Durgapur Steel Plant (a Steel Authority of India unit, set up in the 1950s with British help) and the IISCO plant at Burnpur near Asansol anchor the steel belt.
• Engineering and rail. Chittaranjan Locomotive Works in Paschim Bardhaman, set up in 1950, makes electric locomotives. Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers in Kolkata builds naval and commercial vessels.
• Petrochemicals and refining. Haldia is the centre of oil refining and petrochemicals, with a large refinery and a petrochemical complex.
• Jute mills. Jute mills line both banks of the Hooghly from Howrah to Kolkata's northern suburbs and make sacking, hessian and diversified jute goods. The mills were once the state's largest employer; many workers have left as demand for sacking fell and competition from synthetic packaging rose.
• Textile, leather and food. Handloom clusters in Nadia and Bardhaman, Bantala's leather complex, rice mills and potato cold storages (West Bengal has among the largest cold-storage capacity in India, a reference-page claim that we treat as reported).
• IT and services. Salt Lake Sector V and New Town house software firms, call centres and data operations, as noted in Economy.

Energy

West Bengal's power comes largely from coal-fired plants such as Farakka (an NTPC station on the Ganga), Kolaghat, Bakreswar, Santaldih and the Damodar Valley Corporation units at Durgapur, Mejia and Chandrapura. The Damodar Valley Corporation was set up in 1948 as India's first multipurpose river valley project, to control the flood-prone Damodar and generate power. The Purulia Pumped Storage Project, in the Ajodhya hills, is among India's largest pumped-storage hydro schemes (about 900 MW, reported). In the north, hydro projects on the Teesta and the Jaldhaka supply local demand. Solar and rooftop schemes are growing, but we did not confirm a current installed capacity figure and do not state one.

Irrigation, floods and rivers

Major projects include the Damodar Valley reservoirs, the Mayurakshi project in Birbhum and Murshidabad, the Kangsabati project in Bankura and Purulia, and the Teesta barrage at Gazoldoba in Jalpaiguri. The Farakka Barrage across the Ganga, begun in the 1960s and commissioned in 1975, was built to divert water into the Hooghly and flush silt from Kolkata's port; it remains the subject of a water-sharing arrangement with Bangladesh under the 1996 Ganga Water Treaty (reported). The 2025-26 state budget announced a Ghatal Master Plan for flood mitigation (₹1,500 crore over two years, PRS) and a river-linking scheme called Nodi Bandhan.

For exam preparation

• West Bengal is India's largest rice producer.
• West Bengal produces most of India's jute (about 88%, reported).
• The state ranks second in potato production (reported).
• Darjeeling tea was the first Indian product to get a Geographical Indication tag.
• The Raniganj coalfield is India's first commercial coalfield.
• The Damodar Valley Corporation (1948) was India's first multipurpose river valley project.
• The Farakka Barrage was commissioned in 1975.
• The Durgapur Steel Plant and IISCO (Burnpur) are the main steel plants.

Transport and infrastructure

West Bengal's transport story starts with the port and the railway: the first passenger train in eastern India ran from Howrah in 1854, and Kolkata is home to India's oldest metro, its only surviving tram network and a port 203 km up the Hooghly. The state sits on the junction of India's east-west and north-east corridors, with the narrow Siliguri Corridor in the north linking the rest of India to the north-east.

Railways

Three railway zones operate in the state: Eastern Railway (headquartered in Kolkata), South Eastern Railway (headquartered at Garden Reach, Kolkata) and the Northeast Frontier Railway, which serves the north Bengal districts from its headquarters at Maligaon, Guwahati. Metro Railway Kolkata became the 17th zone of Indian Railways in December 2010 (as reported). The state's railway line length is about 3,825 km (reported).

• Howrah Junction opened in 1854 and is among India's busiest and oldest stations; it is the terminus for the Eastern Railway's main line.
• Sealdah serves the suburban network of the Sealdah division of Eastern Railway and trains from the north and east.
• The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (2 ft narrow gauge, opened in 1881) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1999) and runs a "Toy Train" between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling.

Kolkata Metro

The Kolkata Metro opened on 24 October 1984 with a 3.4 km stretch between Esplanade and Bhowanipore (the first commercial stretch is described on a reference page as Esplanade to Netaji Bhavan; confirm the exact section), making it the first underground metro in India. As reported on a reference page, the network has about 73 km of operational line across five coloured lines and about 58 stations, carrying roughly 800,000 passengers a day. The Blue Line is the original north-south line; the Green Line is the east-west corridor, which includes a section running under the Hooghly river, the first underwater transport tunnel through a major Indian river (opened in stages, 2024 for the underwater section, reported). Howrah Maidan is reported to be India's deepest metro station, at about 34 m. The Purple, Orange and Yellow lines were opened in stages from 2022 to 2025 (reported).

Trams, ferries and city transport

Kolkata has the only operating tram network in India (horse-drawn from 1873, electrified from 1902), now reduced to a few routes. Suburban trains and buses carry most commuters. The Hooghly is crossed by Howrah Bridge (a cantilever bridge opened in 1943, officially Rabindra Setu), Vidyasagar Setu (a cable-stayed bridge opened in 1992), Vivekananda Setu and the Nivedita Setu.

Roads

The state has about 92,000 km of roads, including about 2,578 km of national highways and about 2,393 km of state highways (reported). Expressways include the Durgapur Expressway, the Kalyani Expressway, the Kona Expressway and the EM Bypass, which skirts the East Kolkata Wetlands.

Airports

• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Dum Dum, Kolkata, is the main airport of eastern India.
• Bagdogra (near Siliguri) serves the north Bengal hills and Sikkim.
• Kazi Nazrul Islam Airport, Andal (Paschim Bardhaman), serves the Durgapur-Asansol belt.

Ports and waterways

The Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port Kolkata, opened in 1870 as the Port of Calcutta, is India's only major river port, and was renamed on 12 January 2020. It handled about 70.9 million tonnes of cargo and 960,549 TEUs in 2025-26 (reported). It consists of the Kolkata Dock System and the Haldia Dock Complex, about 60 km downstream, which was built to relieve pressure on Kolkata. The Hooghly has shifting sandbars and sharp bends, so ships rely on pilots, dredging and flow from the Farakka Barrage. National Waterway 1 (Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly) runs through the state. Petrapole-Benapole is the largest land port for trade with Bangladesh.

Water and urban infrastructure

Power is covered under Energy above. Arsenic in groundwater in the Ganga delta districts (Murshidabad, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Malda) is a long-standing concern, and the 2026-27 budget raised allocations for water and sanitation by a large margin (₹15,402 crore, up 154%, PRS). Kolkata's drainage and sewage flow east into the East Kolkata Wetlands.

For exam preparation

• Kolkata Metro (24 October 1984) is India's first metro.
• Howrah Junction opened in 1854; the first passenger train in eastern India ran from Howrah to Hooghly.
• Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway are headquartered in Kolkata; Northeast Frontier Railway serves north Bengal.
• The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway was inscribed as a UNESCO site in 1999.
• Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (Kolkata) is India's only major river port; Haldia is its subsidiary dock complex.
• Howrah Bridge (Rabindra Setu) opened in 1943; Vidyasagar Setu in 1992.
• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport is at Dum Dum.

Culture, tribes and heritage

West Bengal's culture grew out of the Bengali language and the 19th-century Bengal Renaissance, layered over older traditions: Buddhist and Pala-Sena art, Vaishnava devotion associated with Chaitanya, Sufi influences, Mughal and colonial architecture, and the living cultures of its tribal communities. Bengal's contributions to literature, music, painting and cinema have been nationally decisive, and Durga Puja, inscribed by UNESCO in 2021, is the state's defining public festival.

Languages and literature

Bengali (Bangla) is the official language, written in the Bengali script, and is spoken by about 86% of people (Census 2011, reported). Nepali (Gorkhali) is widely spoken in the Darjeeling hills, and Hindi, Urdu, Santali and Odia are spoken in various districts. The Santali language has its own script, Ol Chiki, created by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in the 1920s; Santali was added to the Eighth Schedule in 2003 (reported).

Early Bengali literature begins with the Charyapada, Buddhist mystical songs from roughly the 10th to 12th centuries. Medieval Bengal produced the Mangalkavya (verse narratives for deities), Krittibas's Bengali Ramayana, and the Vaishnava padabali (lyric poetry) around the saint Chaitanya (born 1486). The modern period began in the 19th century with Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (prose), Michael Madhusudan Dutt (epic and blank verse), and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, whose novel Anandamath (1882) contains the song Vande Mataram.

Writer	Known for
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)	Gitanjali; first Asian Nobel laureate in Literature (1913); composer of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh
Kazi Nazrul Islam	The "rebel poet"; Nazrul Geeti; later the national poet of Bangladesh
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay	Novelist (Devdas, Parineeta)
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay	Pather Panchali, later filmed by Satyajit Ray
Jibanananda Das	Major modern poet (Banalata Sen)
Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay	Jnanpith 1966 (reported)
Ashapurna Devi	Jnanpith 1976 (reported)
Mahasweta Devi	Jnanpith 1996 (reported)

The Kolkata Book Fair (International Kolkata Book Fair, held in January-February, from 1976) is among the largest book fairs in the world, and the Bengali "little magazine" movement is a distinctive part of its literary culture.

Music, dance and theatre

• Rabindra Sangeet are the songs composed by Tagore, around 2,000 in number (reported), grouped by themes such as nature, love and devotion.
• Nazrul Geeti are the songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam, mixing Bengali, Islamic and Hindu devotional forms.
• Baul are wandering mystic minstrels of the Bengal region who sing of inner devotion; Baul songs were inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2008 (reported). Lalon Fakir is the best-known historical Baul saint. A major Baul fair takes place at Joydeb Kenduli in Birbhum around Makar Sankranti.
• Chhau of Purulia is a martial and mask dance drawn from the epics, with large painted masks; Purulia Chhau was inscribed on UNESCO's ICH list in 2010 (reported).
• Other folk forms. Jatra (open-air popular theatre), Gambhira (Malda and Dinajpur), Jhumur and Tusu (western districts), Bhadu, Alkap, Kabigan (poetry duels) and Putul Nach (rod-puppet shows).
• Theatre and cinema. The Bengal group theatre movement (Bohurupee, IPTA) and the Tollygunge film industry ("Tollywood") are central to Bengali culture. Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) made Pather Panchali (1955), won an honorary Academy Award in 1992 and the Bharat Ratna in 1992. Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen are the other major names of Bengali parallel cinema. Kolkata hosts the Kolkata International Film Festival in November.

Festivals

Festival	When and what to know
Durga Puja	Ashwin (September-October); five days of public pandals and idol immersion; inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage in December 2021
Poila Baishakh	Bengali New Year, 14 or 15 April; the day for new account books (Haal Khata) at shops
Kali Puja and Diwali	October-November; Kali is worshipped at night, especially at Kalighat and Dakshineswar
Jagaddhatri Puja	November; Chandannagar is most famous for it
Poush Mela	December at Santiniketan; a fair of Baul music and handicrafts
Basanta Utsav	The spring festival (Holi) introduced by Tagore at Santiniketan
Gangasagar Mela	Makar Sankranti (January) on Sagar Island, a major pilgrimage
Rath Yatra at Mahesh	Held at Mahesh near Serampore, one of the oldest in eastern India
Rash Mela	Cooch Behar, in autumn
Eid, Muharram, Christmas	Kolkata's Park Street celebrates Christmas
Karam, Sarhul, Baha	Tribal harvest and nature festivals of Santhal, Oraon and Munda communities

Poila Baishakh and Durga Puja define the Bengali ritual year, and Bhai Phonta, Saraswati Puja and Nabanna (the first rice harvest feast) are widely observed.

Tribes of West Bengal

West Bengal has 40 notified Scheduled Tribes (reported), forming about 5.8% of the rural and 1.5% of the urban population in Census 2011, and about 5.3 million tribal people in total (reported). The five largest, the Santal, Oraon, Munda, Bhumij and Kora, are about 85% of the tribal population. Tribal populations are concentrated in Paschim Medinipur, Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and the Dinajpur districts.

Tribe	Notes
Santal	Largest tribe, over half of the state's ST population (reported 51.8%); speak Santali; Ol Chiki script; the Santal rebellion (Hul) of 1855 is a landmark of tribal resistance
Oraon	About 14% of ST population (reported); speak Kurukh; concentrated in the Dooars and tea gardens
Munda	About 8% (reported); related to the Munda rebellion tradition of Jharkhand
Bhumij	About 7.6% (reported); found in Medinipur and Purulia
Lodha (Kheria Sabar)	Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in Paschim Medinipur and Jhargram; formerly labelled a "criminal tribe"
Toto	PVTG with a very small population in Totopara, Alipurduar district
Birhor	PVTG, small forest-dwelling community in Purulia
Lepcha, Bhutia, Sherpa	Hill communities of Darjeeling and Kalimpong
Rabha, Mech, Garo	Dooars and Terai communities

Three groups are PVTGs (reported): Lodha, Toto and Birhor. For the exact scheduled list and spellings, check the Ministry of Tribal Affairs notification.

Cuisine

Bengali cuisine uses fish (hilsa, rohu, prawn), rice and mustard oil, with a sequence of courses that starts with bitter dishes. Staples include machher jhol (fish curry), shorshe ilish (hilsa in mustard), luchi-alur dom, mishti doi and a wide range of sweets. The rosogolla, said to have been popularised in Kolkata in the 1860s, got a Geographical Indication tag as "Banglar Rosogolla" in 2017 after a dispute with Odisha, which later received its own tag for the Odisha Rasagola in 2019 (reported). Kolkata biryani, kathi rolls and phuchka (street snacks) are famous.

Crafts, textiles and GI tags

• Sarees. Baluchari (Bishnupur, with mythological scenes woven on silk), Dhaniakhali and Shantipur cotton sarees, Jamdani (fine muslin with woven motifs) and Tangail sarees (from the Nadia-Bardhaman weaving belt). Several carry GI tags (Baluchari and Dhaniakhali are reported).
• Kantha. Embroidered quilts from running stitch, traditionally made from old cloth; Nakshi Kantha is a GI product (reported).
• Dokra (lost-wax brass casting, Bankura and Bardhaman), terracotta (Bankura horse, Bishnupur), Patachitra scrolls (Paschim Medinipur), Shola pith craft, Madur mats and Sitalpati (Cooch Behar), and Kalighat paintings, which began near the Kalighat temple in the 19th century.
• Food and agri GI products. Darjeeling Tea (the first Indian GI), Banglar Rosogolla, Fazli, Himsagar and Laxmanbhog mangoes of Malda (reported), Mihidana and Sitabhog sweets of Bardhaman (reported). The precise GI list should be checked in the Geographical Indications Journal.

Architecture and painting

Bishnupur's brick temples (17th-18th century, Malla rulers) carry detailed terracotta panels from the epics and everyday life. The Bengali "char-chala" and "aat-chala" roofs imitate village huts. In Gaur and Pandua (Malda), the Adina Mosque (14th century) records the Sultanate period. Murshidabad has the Hazarduari Palace (1837) from the era of the Nawabs. Kolkata's colonial buildings range from Raj Bhavan and the Writers' Building to the Indo-Saracenic Victoria Memorial (opened 1921). The Bengal School of art, led by Abanindranath Tagore, and later Nandalal Bose, turned to Indian themes as a reaction to academic Western style.

Fairs

Major fairs include the Kolkata Book Fair, Poush Mela, Gangasagar Mela, Joydeb Kenduli Mela, Rash Mela (Cooch Behar), Tarapith's Tara Ma fair, and the Jhargram and Purulia tribal fairs.

For exam preparation

• Bengali is the official language; Santali's script is Ol Chiki.
• Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for Gitanjali.
• Durga Puja in Kolkata was inscribed on UNESCO's ICH list in 2021.
• Purulia Chhau is a mask dance on the ICH list (2010, reported).
• Baul songs of Bengal are on the ICH list (2008, reported).
• Rosogolla received a GI tag in 2017 as Banglar Rosogolla.
• Santal is the largest tribe; Lodha, Toto and Birhor are PVTGs.

Tourism and places of interest

West Bengal combines hill stations, coast, mangrove forest, colonial and medieval monuments and the cultural city of Kolkata. It has four UNESCO listings: the Sundarbans National Park (1987), the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (1999, as part of Mountain Railways of India), Durga Puja in Kolkata (Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2021) and Santiniketan (2023, the state's second cultural property).

Key sites

Site	District	What to know
Victoria Memorial	Kolkata	Marble museum built in memory of Queen Victoria, opened 1921
Indian Museum	Kolkata	Founded 1814, India's oldest museum
Howrah Bridge	Howrah-Kolkata	Cantilever bridge, 1943, formally Rabindra Setu
Dakshineswar Kali Temple and Belur Math	Kolkata, Howrah	Associated with Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
Kalighat Kali Temple	Kolkata	One of the Shakti Peethas
Eden Gardens	Kolkata	Cricket stadium, dating from 1864
Sundarbans National Park	South 24 Parganas	UNESCO site (1987), mangrove, Royal Bengal tiger
Darjeeling, Tiger Hill, Kalimpong	Darjeeling, Kalimpong	Hill stations; Singalila National Park and Sandakphu trek
Darjeeling Himalayan Railway	Darjeeling	UNESCO site (1999)
Santiniketan	Birbhum	Visva-Bharati; UNESCO site (2023)
Bishnupur	Bankura	Terracotta temples, Baluchari sarees
Murshidabad, Gaur-Pandua	Murshidabad, Malda	Nawabi and Sultanate monuments
Digha, Mandarmani, Bakkhali	East Midnapore, South 24 Parganas	Beach resorts
Gangasagar	South 24 Parganas	Pilgrimage site at the mouth of the Ganga
Jaldapara, Gorumara, Buxa	Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri	Rhino, elephant and tiger habitats in the Dooars
Cooch Behar Palace	Cooch Behar	Early 20th-century palace of the Koch Behar rulers
Tarapith	Birbhum	Shakti Peetha and temple town
Mayapur	Nadia	Associated with Chaitanya; ISKCON headquarters

Natural and protected sites

The Sundarbans National Park is part of the Indian Sundarbans, about 4,260 sq km of the larger 10,277 sq km delta shared with Bangladesh (reported). It became a Tiger Reserve in 1973 (reported). An estimate from the 2011-2015 period put about 74 tigers on the Indian side (reported); consult the latest all-India tiger estimation for current numbers. The Sundarbans Wetland is also a Ramsar site (2019, reported), as are the East Kolkata Wetlands (2002). The Sundarbans is also a Biosphere Reserve. Other protected areas are Jaldapara (one-horned rhino), Gorumara (rhino, elephant), Buxa Tiger Reserve, Singalila (red panda), and Neora Valley. A reference page lists five national parks and fifteen wildlife sanctuaries covering about 3.26% of the state; other lists count more national parks, so confirm the figure from the Forest Department.

Heritage and city sites in Kolkata

Kolkata was the capital of British India until 1911. Landmarks include Victoria Memorial, St Paul's Cathedral, the Indian Museum, the Asiatic Society (founded 1784 by William Jones), the National Library (Belvedere), Fort William, College Street's book market and the Marble Palace. Park Street, the Maidan, and Kumartuli (potters' quarter that makes the Durga idols) are visited in the festival season.

Hills, coast and heritage circuits

The Darjeeling hills offer the Himalayan view of Kanchenjunga from Tiger Hill, tea estates, the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (founded 1954, reported) and the Singalila ridge trek to Sandakphu. Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik are quieter hill stops. On the coast, Digha and Mandarmani are weekend beach towns, while Bakkhali and the Henry's Island area lie on the Sundarbans fringe. The heritage circuit of Bardhaman, Hooghly and Nadia includes the Danish settlement at Serampore, the French quarter of Chandannagar, the Hooghly Imambara and Bandel Church. Boat safaris into the Sundarbans start from Sonakhali, Canning and Godkhali, and the park needs a forest permit.

For exam preparation

• Sundarbans National Park became a UNESCO site in 1987; the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in 1999; Durga Puja in 2021; Santiniketan in 2023.
• Victoria Memorial opened in 1921; Indian Museum was founded in 1814.
• Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world, shared with Bangladesh.
• Jaldapara is known for the one-horned rhinoceros.
• East Kolkata Wetlands is a Ramsar site (2002).

Education, health, sports and personalities

West Bengal was an early centre of modern education in India, and Calcutta was the intellectual capital of the colonial period. Its institutions include India's first IIT and first IIM, and the state produced many scientists, reformers and artists.

Higher education

Institution	Facts
University of Calcutta	Founded 1857, one of the first three modern universities in India with Bombay and Madras
Presidency College (Presidency University)	Began as Hindu College in 1817; became a university in 2010
IIT Kharagpur	Established 1951, the first IIT
IIM Calcutta	Established 1961, the first IIM
Indian Statistical Institute	Founded 1931 by P. C. Mahalanobis
Jadavpur University	Grew from the National Council of Education (1906); university from 1955
Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan	Founded by Tagore in 1921; central university from 1951
AIIMS Kalyani	One of the newer AIIMS institutes in Nadia
IISER Kolkata, IIEST Shibpur, NIT Durgapur	National institutes in the state
Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science	Founded 1876 by Mahendralal Sircar; where C. V. Raman worked
Bose Institute	Founded 1917 by J. C. Bose

Medical education began with Calcutta Medical College, founded 1835, one of the oldest in Asia (reported). Other institutions include Kolkata's Jadavpur, Presidency and St. Xavier's, and the state-aided universities at Burdwan, North Bengal, Kalyani and Vidyasagar. Note that the Census 2011 literacy rate was 77.08% against 74.04% for India (reported), and the sex ratio was 947 per 1,000 men (Census 2011).

Schools and literacy

School education is run by the state's School Education Department and boards: the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (Madhyamik) and the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (HS), alongside CBSE and ICSE schools, which are concentrated in Kolkata. Kolkata has historic schools such as La Martiniere, St. Xavier's and Hare School, and a long tradition of colleges affiliated to the University of Calcutta. State drives such as Kanyashree and the mid-day meal scheme aim at keeping girls and poor children in school; for current enrolment and dropout figures, consult UDISE+ reports, which we did not open.

Health

West Bengal's health indicators are mixed: a very low total fertility rate (about 1.6, reported, the lowest among states) and life expectancy of about 70 years (2010-14, reported) but pockets of poor access in the Sundarbans and the western districts. Public hospitals in Kolkata include SSKM (PG Hospital) and Calcutta Medical College Hospital. The 2026-27 budget allocates ₹25,530 crore to health (up 23%, PRS). A new health-insurance scheme started in 2026 (see Government schemes).

Sports

• Cricket. Eden Gardens (1864) is one of the world's oldest and largest cricket stadiums, with capacity above 60,000 (reported). The Cricket Association of Bengal runs it. Bengal produced cricketers such as Pankaj Roy and Sourav Ganguly; Jhulan Goswami is a leading women's pace bowler.
• Football. The Calcutta Football League (from 1898) is among the oldest in Asia. Mohun Bagan (founded 1889) won the IFA Shield in 1911, the first Indian side to beat a British regiment team in a major final. East Bengal was founded in 1920, and Mohammedan Sporting is another historic club. The Kolkata derby between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal is the best-known rivalry in Indian football. Players such as Chuni Goswami, P. K. Banerjee and Sailen Manna belong to Bengal football's history. The Salt Lake Stadium (Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan) is one of the largest in India. The Durand Cup also has Kolkata as a historic venue.
• Other sports. Hockey, athletics and chess have regional strengths; the Kolkata Rowing Club and the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (1829, reported as the oldest golf club outside the British Isles) are historic.

Notable people (historical)

Person	Known for
Raja Ram Mohan Roy	Founder of Brahmo Samaj; campaigned against sati
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar	Social reformer; widow remarriage
Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda	Spiritual leaders; Ramakrishna Mission (1897)
Rabindranath Tagore	Nobel 1913; founder of Visva-Bharati
Subhas Chandra Bose	Leader of the Indian National Army
Sri Aurobindo, Bipin Chandra Pal	Freedom movement leaders
J. C. Bose and S. N. Bose	Scientists; Bose-Einstein statistics
Satyajit Ray	Filmmaker, Bharat Ratna 1992
Amartya Sen	Economics Nobel 1998
Abhijit Banerjee	Economics Nobel 2019 (shared)
Mother Teresa	Nobel Peace Prize 1979; founded Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata
Syama Prasad Mookerjee	Educator and political leader

For exam preparation

• University of Calcutta was founded in 1857; IIT Kharagpur in 1951 (first IIT); IIM Calcutta in 1961 (first IIM).
• Indian Statistical Institute was founded in 1931.
• Eden Gardens dates from 1864; Mohun Bagan from 1889 and East Bengal from 1920.
• Tagore (1913), Mother Teresa (1979, Peace), Amartya Sen (1998) and Abhijit Banerjee (2019) are West Bengal-linked Nobel laureates.
• Census 2011 literacy was 77.08%.

Government schemes

West Bengal runs one of the largest sets of cash-transfer and welfare schemes in India, many branded with Bengali names. A new state government took office in 2026, and several schemes are being changed or merged with central programmes. Because these changes are recent, scheme names, amounts and eligibility below are as reported on 4 October 2026; check the state portal or the latest notification before relying on them.

Scheme	What it does	Status as reported
Lakshmir Bhandar	Monthly cash support to women: ₹1,500 (general) and ₹1,700 (SC/ST) after a February 2026 increase	Reported as being replaced by Annapurna Bhandar from 1 June 2026
Annapurna Bhandar (Annapurna Yojana)	₹3,000 a month to eligible women aged 25 to 60, by direct benefit transfer to Aadhaar-linked accounts; excludes income-tax payers and government employees or pensioners; existing Lakshmir Bhandar beneficiaries to be migrated automatically	Budgeted at about ₹36,000 crore in 2026-27 (PRS)
Kanyashree Prakalpa	Cash support to girls in school and college to delay early marriage; started 2013	No change found in sources checked; status not confirmed
Swasthya Sathi	State health insurance, cover up to ₹5 lakh per family	Reported to run alongside new schemes for some months, then to be phased out
Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY	Central scheme of cashless cover of up to ₹5 lakh a year; West Bengal reported as the 36th state/UT to join, with rollout from 16 August 2026, about 15 million families	New in 2026 (reported)
Sabuj Sathi	Free bicycles for students in classes IX-XII	Status after 2026 not confirmed
Krishak Bandhu	Income support and death benefit for farmers	Status after 2026 not confirmed
Banglar Bari (housing)	Rural housing aid; 2025-26 budget supported 16 lakh families in Phase 2, with a first instalment of ₹60,000	2025-26 figures from PRS
Rupashree, Oikyashree	Marriage assistance and minority scholarships	Status after 2026 not confirmed
Khadya Sathi	Subsidised rice and wheat to ration-card holders	Under the National Food Security framework; status not confirmed
Duare Sarkar	Camp-style delivery of welfare services at the doorstep	Status after 2026 not confirmed

Central programmes that apply in the state include the National Food Security Act ration scheme, PM-KISAN for farmers, PM Awas Yojana for housing and MGNREGA for rural employment; check the current rules, as central schemes are revised often. In the 2026-27 budget, PRS records allocations of ₹54,798 crore for education (up 51%), ₹25,530 crore for health (up 23%), ₹24,555 crore for rural development (up 132%) and ₹15,402 crore for water and sanitation (up 154%).

For exam preparation

• Lakshmir Bhandar was the state's monthly cash-support scheme for women, reported to be replaced by Annapurna Bhandar (₹3,000 a month) from 1 June 2026.
• Kanyashree Prakalpa (2013) supports girls' education and delays early marriage.
• Swasthya Sathi was the state health insurance scheme; Ayushman Bharat is reported to start from 16 August 2026.
• Banglar Bari is the rural housing scheme.
• Scheme names and amounts change with governments; verify the latest on the state portal.

Government exams in West Bengal

Government recruitment in West Bengal is split across a few bodies. The Public Service Commission, West Bengal (WBPSC) selects officers through the West Bengal Civil Service (Executive) exam, and also runs the Clerkship, Miscellaneous Services and Judicial Service exams. The School Service Commission (WBSSC) fills teaching and non-teaching posts in state-aided schools. The West Bengal Police Recruitment Board (WBPRB) handles constables and sub-inspectors, and the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) recruits primary teachers. Dates, vacancy counts, fees and age limits change with every advertisement, so treat every figure below as a pointer and read the current notice before applying. Where a figure comes from an exam-prep or news site and not from an official document, we write "reported". Facts were checked on 4 October 2026.

For live openings, see West Bengal government jobs. To practise, use the online test series. We do not yet have separate West Bengal exam guide pages, so there are no per-exam links here; the neighbouring state guides for Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam show how comparable bodies work.

Public Service Commission, West Bengal (WBPSC)

Wikipedia gives the commission's founding as 1 April 1937, as the Bengal Public Service Commission, and its address as 161/A, S.P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata. Like every state commission, it rests on Articles 315 to 323 of the Constitution. We do not name any chairperson or member because they change; see current affairs. When we opened the commission's site (psc.wb.gov.in) on 4 October 2026, its notices included answer-key and result notices for the WBCS (Executive) 2024 preliminary (Advt. 08/2024), interview schedules for WBCS 2023 Group A and B, Clerkship 2023 Part II roll numbers, a syllabus notice for the Miscellaneous Services exam 2024 (Advt. 13/2024) and admit cards for the West Bengal Judicial Service preliminary 2024.

WBCS (Executive) etc.

This is the flagship combined exam. A prep site reports that the 2025 advertisement is No. 03/2025, covering about 20 services and posts in four groups (A to D), with the number of vacancies not announced and the preliminary tentatively in November 2026. We could not open the official advertisement, so treat all of that as unconfirmed.

Stage	What it is (reported)
Preliminary	200 objective questions, 200 marks, 2.5 hours. Eight subjects of 25 marks each: English composition, general science, current events, history of India, geography of India with special reference to West Bengal, Indian polity and economy, Indian national movement, and general mental ability. It is a screening test, qualifying in nature.
Mains	For Groups A and B, six compulsory papers and two optional-subject papers of 200 marks each; Groups C and D take the compulsory papers only. Careers360 gives about 1,600 marks and another site gives 1,300 to 1,800 depending on the group, so check the notice.
Interview	Personality test, reported as 200 marks.

Language is a real feature of this exam. Candidates must be able to read, write and speak Bengali; those whose mother tongue is Nepali are reported to be exempt. The compulsory language paper (letter writing, report writing, composition and translation) can be taken in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali or Santali, according to prep sites. The same sites say other mains papers can be answered in English or Bengali, and that more than 35 optional subjects are offered.

Reported age limits for the 2025 advertisement: 21 to 36 for Groups A and C (born between 2 January 1988 and 1 January 2003), 20 to 36 for the Police Service in Group B, and 21 to 39 for Group D. The same sources give a 5-year relaxation for SC and ST, 3 years for non-creamy-layer OBC and an upper limit of 45 for persons with disabilities. A bachelor's degree is required. Police Service posts have a reported minimum height of 165 cm for men and 150 cm for women, with relaxation for certain communities.

Clerkship and Miscellaneous Services

The Clerkship exam is for clerks in state departments. Prep sites report two parts: Part I is 100 objective questions in 90 minutes (general studies 40, arithmetic 30, English 30, with a quarter-mark deduction for each wrong answer), set in English and Bengali; Part II is a conventional paper of 100 marks (English 50 and a language paper of 50 in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali or Santali), followed by a typing test. The reported qualification is the Madhyamik (Class 10) or equivalent with basic computer skills and typing speed (reported as 20 words a minute in English or 10 in Bengali), and the age is reported as 18 to 40.

School Service Commission (WBSSC) and the 2016 panel

The School Service Commission recruits teachers (Classes 9-10 and 11-12) and non-teaching staff (Group C clerks and Group D) for state-aided schools through the State Level Selection Test (SLST). LiveLaw lists the body under the statutory name West Bengal Central School Service Commission.

What happened. On 3 April 2025 the Supreme Court set aside the entire 2016 SLST recruitment panel as "tainted and vitiated", annulling 25,753 appointments of teachers and non-teaching staff (Careers360 and Deccan Herald via search summary). The court identified 15,403 teachers as not found to be specifically tainted and let them continue until the fresh process finished, with a direction that the process be completed before 31 December 2025 (Careers360).

The fresh process (as on 4 October 2026).

• The commission issued a notification on 30 May 2025 for 35,726 assistant-teacher posts (reported at 5.9 lakh applications, compared with 3.16 lakh in 2016). Applications ran from 16 June to 21 July 2025, after an extension from 14 July.
• The second SLST (assistant teachers) was held in September 2025; a prep site reports 7 and 14 September, and ETV Bharat reports over 2.29 lakh candidates for the 14 September paper. Results for Classes 11-12 were published in early November 2025.
• Document verification and interviews were reported for 23 March to 23 May 2026. The commission's notice page showed counselling and merit-list notices for Classes 11-12 and verification letters for Classes 9-10 (the latest dated 20 April 2026, for substitute vacancies in Arabic and Sociology).
• Candidates named as tainted in the 3 April judgment were barred from applying. Careers360 and Deccan Herald headlines say the Calcutta High Court upheld that bar.
• For non-teaching staff, a notification for 8,477 vacancies (2,989 clerks, 5,488 Group D) opened registration on 3 November 2025, later extended to 12 December. Exam dates are reported inconsistently (January 2026 in the notification; March 2026 in a later prep article), and a prep site says results had not come by September 2026. We could not confirm any of this officially.

We could not find an official statement that all posts have been filled or that the process is complete, so we describe it as ongoing and not confirmed. For the pattern of the SLST (marks, interview weightage), we saw only the combined merit rule (written test, academic qualifications, interview and lecture demonstration, for Classes 9-12) and give no further figures. The usual qualifications are a graduate degree with B.Ed. for Classes 9-10 and a postgraduate degree with B.Ed. for Classes 11-12; check the notification.

West Bengal Police Recruitment Board (WBPRB)

The board's website (prb.wb.gov.in) says it was established in July 2010 to ensure a transparent recruitment process, and gives its address as Araksha Bhawan, Sector II, Salt Lake, Kolkata. On 4 October 2026 its homepage listed the final result for the 2024 Constable recruitment and call letters for personality tests for the 2023 Sub-Inspector and Sergeant recruitment of Kolkata Police. Separately, a board notice dated 25 May 2026 (read in full) says that several writ petitions about the 2024 Constable recruitment were pending in the Calcutta High Court.

The reported selection stages, for both constable and sub-inspector posts, are a preliminary written test, a Physical Measurement Test, a Physical Efficiency Test, a final written test and a personality test. The 2024 constable drive is reported at 11,749 posts (8,212 male and 3,537 female) after revision, with applications from 7 March to 5 April 2024. The reported entry qualification for constable is the Madhyamik; the reported baseline age is 18 to 30 with 5 years' relaxation for SC and ST and 3 for OBC; and applicants must be able to read, write and speak Bengali, except permanent residents of the hill sub-divisions, where Nepali is accepted. As on 14 September 2026, a jobs site says the board had published no new 2026 constable notification, and that figures of 12,000 or 20,000 vacancies circulating online had no notice behind them.

Primary teachers: WBBPE and TET

Primary teachers (Classes 1 to 5) in government-aided and sponsored schools are recruited by the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, after passing the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET). A notice dated 25 September 2025 invited applications for 13,421 assistant-teacher posts; Careers360 reports applications from 19 November to 9 December 2025. The notice, as summarised by WBXPress, requires Higher Secondary with a two-year D.El.Ed. or a four-year B.El.Ed., or a graduate degree with D.El.Ed., a valid TET, and the language of the chosen medium studied at Higher Secondary level. The age is 18 to 40 as on 1 January 2025, relaxable for SC, ST, OBC, persons with disabilities and others. The merit score is out of 50, with weight to Madhyamik (5), Higher Secondary (10), training (15), TET (5), extracurricular activities (5), interview (5) and an aptitude test (5). Fees were reported as Rs 600 (general), Rs 500 (OBC) and Rs 300 (SC, ST, EWS, persons with disabilities). The TET is reported as 150 one-mark questions in five parts of 30 (child development, two languages, mathematics, environmental studies) with no negative marking; one source says 90 minutes, which we could not confirm. We did not confirm the current status of this recruitment.

Calcutta High Court

The Calcutta High Court, in Kolkata, was established on 1 July 1862 and is called the oldest High Court in India; Wikipedia gives its circuit benches as Jalpaiguri and Port Blair and its sanctioned strength as 72 judges (54 permanent, 18 additional) as on October 2026. It also has jurisdiction over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. We could not open its recruitment notices, so we describe no staff-recruitment exam.

Domicile, reservation and recruitment rules

West Bengal has no single state-wide domicile test for all jobs that we could confirm. What we could confirm is a language rule, a citizenship rule and a few age and reservation rules, and the picture for OBC reservation changed in 2026. Always check the individual notification.

Domicile, residence and language

• Language. WBCS and police advertisements are reported to require that candidates can read, write and speak Bengali. The exceptions reported are Nepali-mother-tongue candidates in WBCS and permanent residents of the hill sub-divisions in police recruitment, where Nepali is accepted. For primary teaching, the rule is different: the language of the medium of instruction (including Santhali, with proficiency in reading, writing and speaking) must have been studied.
• Citizenship. WBCS is reported to be open to Indian citizens and certain other categories recognised by the Government of India. The primary-teacher notice requires Indian citizenship.
• Residence. Of the notices we saw, none set a residence or domicile condition for general-category candidates. We did not find an official source for rules on caste-certificate eligibility for candidates from other states. Reserved-category benefits normally depend on a certificate issued by a competent authority in West Bengal; confirm this in each notice.

Reservation percentages

• SC and ST. 22% for Scheduled Castes and 6% for Scheduled Tribes in state government services and posts (reported by WBXPress; we did not open the order).
• OBC. Before 2024, reservation under the West Bengal Backward Classes Act, 2012 was 10% for OBC-A (the "more backward") and 7% for OBC-B (the "backward"). On 22 May 2024 a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court quashed the classification of 77 communities as OBC and cancelled OBC certificates issued after 2010 (about 5 lakh, reported). Those already in service or who had already used the benefit were protected, but the cancelled certificates cannot be used for future applications. The state's appeal reached the Supreme Court. On 14 July 2026 the Supreme Court allowed the state and the State Backward Classes Commission to withdraw their appeals, and noted that other aggrieved persons could still pursue appeals. LiveLaw reports that two Bills restructuring the framework were passed, that 66 communities are retained, and that the OBC share in government posts is now 7% (down from 17%). The OBC-A and OBC-B split no longer applies, as we read it. Because the situation has been changing, check the notification and the issuing authority for your category before you rely on a certificate.
• EWS, disability and other categories. We did not verify the percentages for EWS, persons with disabilities, women, ex-servicemen or sports persons in West Bengal state posts, so we state none.

Age limits and relaxation

An order of the Finance Department dated 30 December 2011 (No. 11653-F(P)), in force from 1 January 2012 and summarised by WBXPress, sets a general upper age of 40 for entry to government posts, 45 for SC and ST, and 43 for OBC and persons with disabilities, with a lower age of 18. The page also mentions a later amendment that changes limits by group, which we could not read. Individual services set their own limits: WBCS is reported at 21 to 36 (Groups A and C), the Clerkship at 18 to 40 and primary teaching at 18 to 40. Reported relaxations are 5 years for SC and ST, 3 for OBC, and an upper limit of 45 for persons with disabilities in WBCS.

Selection stages and cycles

Most posts follow a written test, then an interview or personality test, with physical tests added for police and a typing test for clerks. Vacancy cycles are irregular. The WBSSC had a nine-year gap before the 2025 SLST (reported), and the 2016 panel's annulment means school recruitment is unusually litigated.

How to use this guide for exam preparation

This guide is a reference for the state-specific questions that appear in WBCS prelims, police and clerk papers; it is not a full syllabus. WBCS prelims is the most state-heavy paper (geography of India "with special reference to West Bengal"), and Bengali or Nepali language skill decides whether you can sit WBCS at all.

Which sections give the most marks

• Geography and Economy. Rivers, districts, agriculture, minerals and industry on the earlier pages of this guide feed the "geography with special reference to West Bengal" quota of the WBCS prelims.
• History and Culture. The 1947 partition, the freedom movement and literature are standard general-studies material.
• Polity and governance. Seat counts, the High Court, the Public Service Commission and reservation rules are short, scoring facts.
• Current affairs. Use current affairs for office-holders, new schemes and recent events; this guide does not name incumbents.

A four-week revision plan

Week	What to do
1	Read Overview, History and Geography. Make a one-page list of rivers, districts and key dates. Take a timed mock with 25 West Bengal questions.
2	Read Administration, Legislature and Elections. Memorise seat counts and the constitutional bodies. Re-attempt wrong answers from week 1.
3	Read Economy, Agriculture, Culture, Tourism and Schemes. Then read the exam sections above and learn the WBCS prelims split.
4	Revise only the Rapid-fire table below and your own notes, and take two full-length mocks from the online test series.

Common traps

• The 2016 SLST panel. The annulment was by the Supreme Court on 3 April 2025. One report we read says 1 April, which is a mistake; the date in other reports is 3 April.
• OBC-A and OBC-B. These existed under the 2012 Act, but the High Court struck down the classification in 2024 and OBC reservation is now reported at 7%. Many sites still show 10% and 7%.
• Old exam notices. WBCS 2025 and 2026 dates on prep sites are tentative. Wait for the official notice.
• Language. Bengali is required for WBCS, but not for Nepali-mother-tongue candidates, and the hill exemption in police recruitment is for permanent residents of the hill sub-divisions only.
• Recruitment bodies. The School Service Commission recruits school staff, WBBPE recruits primary teachers, and WBPSC recruits officers and clerks; they have different notices.

Rapid-fire facts

Facts are as on 4 October 2026. Items marked "reported" come from exam-prep or news sites. Items from Wikipedia are marked as such where the source is a single page.

Fact	Answer
Date West Bengal came into being	15 August 1947 (Wikipedia)
State capital	Kolkata
Area	88,752 sq km (Wikipedia)
Population, Census 2011	91,347,736
Sex ratio, Census 2011	950 females per 1,000 males
Literacy, Census 2011	77.08%
Population density, Census 2011	1,029 per sq km
Highest point (Wikipedia)	Sandakphu, 3,636 m
Largest river (Wikipedia)	Ganges
Divisions (Wikipedia)	5, with 23 districts as listed there
Official languages (Wikipedia)	Bengali and English, with others recognised in some areas
State animal	Fishing cat
State bird	White-throated kingfisher
State flower	Night-flowering jasmine
State tree	Chhatim
Vidhan Sabha seats	294
Seats needed for majority	148
Lok Sabha seats	42
Rajya Sabha seats	16
High Court	Calcutta High Court
High Court established	1 July 1862
Oldest High Court in India	Calcutta High Court
High Court circuit benches	Jalpaiguri and Port Blair
High Court also covers	Andaman and Nicobar Islands
High Court sanctioned strength	72 (54 permanent, 18 additional)
WBPSC founded	1 April 1937, as Bengal Public Service Commission
WBPSC address	161/A, S.P. Mukherjee Road, Kolkata
Constitutional articles for PSCs	315 to 323
Flagship WBPSC exam	WBCS (Executive) etc.
WBPSC also runs	Clerkship, Miscellaneous Services, Judicial Service exams
WBCS stages	Preliminary, Mains, Interview
WBCS prelims marks (reported)	200, 2.5 hours
WBCS prelims subjects (reported)	8, of 25 marks each
WBCS prelims nature	Screening, qualifying
WBCS Mains papers for Groups A and B (reported)	6 compulsory + 2 optional of 200 marks each
WBCS Interview marks (reported)	200
Language skill needed for WBCS	Read, write and speak Bengali (reported)
Exempted from Bengali rule in WBCS	Nepali mother tongue (reported)
WBCS language paper options (reported)	Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Santali
WBCS 2025 advertisement number (reported)	03/2025
WBCS Groups A and C age (reported)	21 to 36
WBCS Group D age (reported)	21 to 39
WBCS age relaxation, SC and ST (reported)	5 years
WBCS age relaxation, OBC (reported)	3 years
Police Service minimum height (reported)	165 cm men, 150 cm women
Clerkship parts (reported)	Part I objective, Part II conventional, typing test
Clerkship Part I (reported)	100 questions, 90 minutes
Clerkship Part I negative marking (reported)	0.25 per wrong answer
Clerkship Part II language options (reported)	Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali, Santali
Clerkship qualification (reported)	Madhyamik with computer and typing skill
Clerkship age (reported)	18 to 40
School recruiting body	West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC)
WBSSC teacher exam	State Level Selection Test (SLST)
2016 SLST panel annulled by Supreme Court	3 April 2025
Appointments annulled	25,753
Teachers found untainted and allowed to continue (reported)	15,403
Fresh teacher notification	30 May 2025
Fresh teacher vacancies (reported)	35,726
Applications for fresh recruitment (reported)	About 5.9 lakh
Applications in 2016 (reported)	3.16 lakh
Fresh SLST held	September 2025 (reported 7 and 14)
Candidates for the 14 September paper (reported)	Over 2.29 lakh
SLST non-teaching vacancies (reported)	8,477 (2,989 clerks and 5,488 Group D)
Non-teaching registration opened (reported)	3 November 2025
Tainted candidates	Barred from fresh SLST (reported)
Police recruiting body	West Bengal Police Recruitment Board (WBPRB)
WBPRB established	July 2010
WBPRB location	Araksha Bhawan, Salt Lake, Kolkata
Police constable stages (reported)	Prelim, PMT, PET, final written, personality test
Constable 2024 posts (reported)	11,749 (8,212 male, 3,537 female)
Constable 2024 applications (reported)	7 March to 5 April 2024
Constable entry qualification (reported)	Madhyamik
Constable baseline age (reported)	18 to 30
Primary recruiting body	West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE)
Primary notice	25 September 2025
Primary vacancies	13,421
Primary age limit	18 to 40 as on 1 January 2025
Primary merit score	Out of 50
Primary TET (reported)	150 marks, no negative marking
Primary eligibility test	TET mandatory
SC reservation in state posts (reported)	22%
ST reservation in state posts (reported)	6%
Pre-2024 OBC split	OBC-A 10%, OBC-B 7%
Law behind that split	West Bengal Backward Classes Act, 2012
High Court OBC judgment	22 May 2024
Communities struck from the OBC list	77
Estimated OBC certificates cancelled (reported)	About 5 lakh
Supreme Court allowed state to withdraw appeal	14 July 2026
Communities retained in OBC list (reported by LiveLaw)	66
OBC share in government posts now (reported)	7%
General upper age under 2011 order (reported)	40
SC and ST upper age under 2011 order (reported)	45
OBC and disability upper age under 2011 order (reported)	43
Order number of 2011 age order	11653-F(P), dated 30 December 2011

Frequently asked questions

Who conducts the WBCS exam?

The Public Service Commission, West Bengal (WBPSC), Kolkata, conducts the West Bengal Civil Service (Executive) etc. exam. It has three stages: a preliminary, a mains and an interview.

What is the WBCS prelims pattern?

Prep sites report 200 objective questions of one mark each in 2.5 hours, across eight subjects of 25 marks. It is a screening test.

Is Bengali compulsory for WBCS?

Candidates must be able to read, write and speak Bengali, according to prep sites. Nepali-mother-tongue candidates are reported to be exempt.

Can I write the WBCS mains in English?

Prep sites say mains papers can be written in English or Bengali, apart from the compulsory language paper. Check the notification.

What is the age limit for WBCS?

For the 2025 advertisement, a prep site reports 21 to 36 for Groups A and C and 21 to 39 for Group D, with 5 years for SC and ST and 3 for OBC. Confirm in the official notice.

What happened to the 2016 SSC recruitment?

The Supreme Court annulled the 2016 SLST panel on 3 April 2025 and set aside 25,753 appointments, calling the process tainted. A fresh process followed.

Is the SLST recruitment finished?

As of 4 October 2026, we could confirm only that the process was continuing, with counselling and merit-list notices up to April 2026. We found no official statement that it was complete.

Can tainted candidates apply in the new SLST?

Reports say candidates identified as tainted in the Supreme Court judgment were barred from applying, and that the Calcutta High Court upheld that bar.

Who recruits police constables in West Bengal?

The West Bengal Police Recruitment Board. The reported stages are a preliminary test, physical tests, a final written test and a personality test.

Is there a new police recruitment notification?

As on 14 September 2026, a jobs site said the board had published no new 2026 constable notice. Check prb.wb.gov.in.

Do I need Bengali for West Bengal Police?

Reports say candidates must read, write and speak Bengali, except permanent residents of the hill sub-divisions. Check the notice.

Who recruits primary teachers?

The West Bengal Board of Primary Education, after the TET. The September 2025 notice covered 13,421 posts.

What is the reservation for SC and ST in West Bengal government jobs?

WBXPress reports 22% for SC and 6% for ST. Confirm in the notification.

What is the OBC reservation in West Bengal now?

After the Calcutta High Court cancelled 77 OBC classes in May 2024, and the state withdrew its appeal on 14 July 2026, LiveLaw reports 7% for OBC in government posts. The old OBC-A and OBC-B split is no longer in use as we read it. Check the current rules.

Are OBC certificates issued after 2010 valid?

The High Court cancelled the certificates of the 77 classes issued after 2010, for future use. People already in service or who had already used them were protected. Check with the issuing authority.

What is the age limit for West Bengal government jobs?

A 2011 order sets 40 for general candidates, 45 for SC and ST, and 43 for OBC and persons with disabilities, but services and posts set their own limits.

Where is the High Court of West Bengal?

The Calcutta High Court, in Kolkata, established on 1 July 1862, with circuit benches in Jalpaiguri and Port Blair.

Where can I practise for West Bengal exams?

Use the online test series, and see West Bengal government jobs for openings.

Sources and verification

Time-sensitive facts (budget, exam rules, the district proposals, the 2026 election result, recruitment litigation) were checked on 4 October 2026. Where sources disagreed or a figure came from a single secondary source, the text says so. Election figures are Wikipedia reproductions of Election Commission data, with the 2026 result cross-checked against news reports and the budget from PRS Legislative Research; cross-check Election Commission results before quoting a number in an answer. Census 2011 is the latest published census.

Facts verified on 4 October 2026. We opened the commissions' sites for headings only; most current-year details come from news and prep sites and are marked "reported". Where sources disagreed or only a single secondary source gave a figure, the text says so. Census 2011 is the latest published census.

• Public Service Commission, West Bengal (psc.wb.gov.in), homepage notices on 4 October 2026.
• West Bengal Central School Service Commission (westbengalssc.com), notice page on 4 October 2026.
• West Bengal Police Recruitment Board (prb.wb.gov.in), homepage, and the notice of 25 May 2026 on the Constable 2024 writ petitions.
• Careers360 news pages on the SLST 2025 interviews, the 5.9 lakh applications and the SLST Group C and D notification.
• ETV Bharat, report on the SLST results.
• LiveLaw, report on the withdrawal of the OBC appeal (14 July 2026), and Outlook's explainer on the May 2024 judgment.
• WBXPress, pages on the 2011 age order and the 2025 primary teacher notice.
• Physics Wallah and My Sarkari Naukri, WBCS eligibility and pattern pages; Prepp, Careers360 and Careerpower pages on WBCS, Clerkship and Police.
• Wikipedia, as a cross-check only: West Bengal, Calcutta High Court and West Bengal Public Service Commission.
• Search-result summaries (not full pages) for the Deccan Herald headlines on the Calcutta High Court and tainted candidates, a jobs-site status report on WB Police (14 September 2026) and the Group C and D exam dates.