Digha Sea Beach
Digha is the most popular beach resorts and tourist destination in West Bengal, is located on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in East Midnapore district. It is a 187 km driving distance towards southwest from Kolkata. Digha has a low gradient with a shallow and hard sand beach with a length extends to 7 km wide. The beach is girdled with Casuarina plantations along the coast enhancing the beauty of this place. In Digha, sea starts about a mile away from the start of the beach.
Digha beach is very good for the tourist activities, but it losses beach area rapidly for the heavy coastal erosion. Some part of the Digha beach has been concretized to prevent it. Another problem of this Sea beach is overcrowded by tourist especially in the winter season, and congested shops to the beach, sometime even on the beach. So, a new beach has been developed for the tourist as an extension of the Old Digha beach, at a distance of 2 km away and called as New Digha. It is much wider and surrounded by plantation, which is very good for any kind of aqua-activities. Udaipur and Shankarpur are two other sea beach nearby to Digha beach, which are fewer crowdies than Old and New Digha. And you may easily get in for enjoy.
Digha was discovered as a sea beach resort in late eighteen century, when this place was known as Beerkul. Once, Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of British India, mention it as "Brighton of the East" in a letter to his wife for describing the beauty of Digha sea beach. A British businessman John Frank Snaith was lived here for many years since 1923 and exposes this place to the world in his writing. After the independence of India, he encourages Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, then the Chief Minister of West Bengal to develop this place as a sea beach resort.
Points of Interest in Digha Beach
The main attraction in Digha is the wide and hard coastal sea beach resort on the Bay of Bengal. It is also one of the widest sea beaches in the world. The scenic beauty of this place is charming and luring. The sea at Digha is calm and shallow for about a mile from the beach making it quite safe for any tourist activities – swimming, scuba diving, jet ski-ing and surfing. One can view both sunrise and sunset at the Digha sea beach. The sunset and sunrise reflecting the salty waters of the Bay of Bengal is something straight off an artist's canvas. This is the only sea resort in west Bengal, where a wide verity of hotels and lodges available with different budgets. Easy to accessibility from the major city of West Bengal, like – Kolkata, Kharagpur, Midnapore and Haldia, boosts its much popularity to the visitors. Digha also get a rapid popularity for its close proximity with several tourist destination.
New Digha
New Digha is the extension part of Old Digha, located 2 km away and was built to reduce the overcrowd of the Old Digha. It is well decorated and well maintained, so its popularity increased day by day. It is very good place for your holiday stay. Some amusement parks and facilities are easily available for the tourists. Some aquatic sports also embedded recently for visitors attractions.
The latest attraction of new Digha is the Science Centre established by the National Council of Science Museums. The Centre offers a wide variety of rare experience of science with fun and games. There has a small park with a lake called Amravati Lake where you can enjoy a boat ride. Deepak Mitra's Snake Garden, near to the Lake is another attraction at New Digha.
Marine Aquarium and Research Centre (MARC)
The Asia's largest Marine Aquarium, which is opposite the hospital in Digha. The major objective of the Centre is to display the marine biodiversity of the region and impart its values to the common people and to carry out the research activities. MARC has equipped with sea water circulation system and advanced filtration unit. The aquarium has 24 big sized marine tanks and 8 fresh water tanks which are equipped with compressed air supply, light and regulated supply of inflow & outflow of water.
Shankarpur
Shankarpur, a virgin beach as yet, is a recent discovery. It is a twin beach of Digha, around 14 km from Digha, along the Digha-Contai Road. It is now developed as a sea resort with hotels. It offers nearly all the pleasures of a private beach with casuarina plantations. Shankarpur is mainly credited for all the advantages of Digha and decreasing the crowd of Digha. It can boast of a wide and unspoilt beach, casuarina groves by the side of a gentle sea and a good climate round the year. Apart from the long, tree-lined beach, the main attraction is the Shankarpur Fishing Harbour Project.
Junput
Initially Junput was not consider as a beach resort, but used for scientific and industrial research, marine study centre, fishing hub and also for shark oil extraction. Junput also used for duck breeding centre and sea-water fisheries & research under the Depertment of Fisheries, Government of West Bengal. But now-a-days, Junput gradually expose its beauty as a sea beach, and also for the fishing. It is about 40 km away from Digha.
Nearby Temples
Chandaneswar at Talsari, a century old famous temple, dedicated to Lord Siva, situated only at a distance of 8 km from New Digha, in Orissa. Every year an annual fair organised hera, at the Bengali month Chaitra (md-march to mid-april) and thousands of visitors and pilgrims are participate on the occasion of the Shiva Temple. Kapal Kundala Temple at Dariapur near to Contai, 45km away from Digha, famous for an ancient temple associated with Bankimchandra‘s novel Kapal Kundala.
Some of the other tourist places in the region include Subarnareskha River, the Subarnareskha Delta and the Mandarmani Beach.
How to reach Digha?
Digha is well connected with Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal by road and train.
By Air: Nearest airport is at Dum Dum, Kolkata.
By Road: A frequent bus services are available in between Digha and Dharmatala Bus stand in Kolkata, which is an 181 km journey via Kolaghat and will take about 4 hours. Bus services are also available from different towns of West Bengal like as Asansole, Midnapore, bankura, Barasat, Bardhaman, Howrah, Kharagpur and also from Balasore of Orissa. You may start your bus journey after arriving at Kolaghat or Mechada by local train. You may also hire a car or taxi from any part of Kolkata to reach Digha.
By Train: Train service were started in between Digha and Santragachhi (near to Vidyasagar Setu, Howrah) railway station, in 2004. It is an EMU passenger train, run every day at 6:15 pm. Now a days four more trains are available to reach at Digha from Kolkata. Please check train list with fare bellow,
Train Name | From Station | Departure | Arrival at Digha | Available class and Fare |
---|---|---|---|---|
Tamralipta Express | Howrah | 06:35 am | 09:57 am | AC Chair – Rs. 370/- 2nd Sitting – Rs. 100/- General – Rs. 85/- |
Paharia Express* | Howrah# | 07:50 am$ | 12:00 noon | AC 1st Class – Rs. 1165/- AC 3-tier – Rs. 495/- Sleeper – Rs. 140/- General – Rs. 70/- |
Digha Super AC Express | Howrah | 11:10 am | 02:20 pm | Executive – Rs. 1044/- AC Chair – Rs. 553/- |
Kandari Express | Howrah | 02:15 pm | 05:37 pm | AC Chair – Rs. 370/- 2nd Sitting – Rs. 100/- General – Rs. 85/- |
EMU Passenger | Mecheda | 07:48 am | 10:55 am | General – Rs. 30/- |
* Run only Saturday. Otherwise, all train are run daily.
# Originally from New Jalpaiguri, but Holt at Howrah for 30 minutes.
$ previous day 8:15 pm from New Jalpaiguri.