Economics
The Bhāgirathi-Hooghly river system is an essential lifeline for the people of West Bengal. It is through this river that the East India company sailed in to Bengal and established their trade settlement - Calcutta, which later grew up to be one of the greatest cities of the world and capital of the erstwhile British India. People from other countries like French, Dutch, Portuguese, etc. all had their trade settlement by the banks of this river.
The river provides perennial supply of water to the plain of West Bengal for irrigation and human & industry consumption. The river is navigable and the major transport system in the region with a huge traffic flow. For a long time, the Calcutta Port was the biggest port of India. Though in the past its significance had gone down, but recently it had again came up to the 3rd position in the list of Indian Ports. The fish from the river are important to the local economy.
The modern container port of Haldia, on the intersection of lower Hooghly and Haldi River, now carries much of the region's maritime trade. One new port will be built in the deep sea to reduce load on Calcutta port.
Hooghly river valley was the most important industrial area of erstwhile state of Bengal. Due to declining jute industry, the prime industry of this region, it lost its glory and partitioning of Bengal. But still it is one of the biggest industrial areas of India. Except Kolkata and Howrah it has number of small cities which forms the Greater Kolkata Agglomeration, the second biggest Indian city and former capital.
Several bridges run over the Hooghly at Kolkata – Howrah Bridge, Vidyasagar Setu, Vivekananda Setu, Nivedita Setu (second Vivekananda Bridge), Jubilee Bridge(chinsurah) and Iswar Gupta Setu(chinsurah).
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