ABSTRACT
The main source of flooding water is the Ghetia Khal, which enters the Shilabati river at Rajagram near the Ghatal Municipality. Hence, people often waited to take advantage of the annual flood waters to transport building materials by boat, which could carry the supplies directly and quickly across the waters; it also works out to be significantly cheaper. During the winter and summer months it may be used as a fishing boat or as a mobile irrigation pumping station on one of the canals or rivers. The annual excess of water, and the havoc wreaked by it on potable water sources, posed a danger to health. But a more constant threat was lack of proper sanitation and open-air defecation. The people of the sub-division take great pride in owning Vidyasagar and in the traditions of education that have made Ghatal one of the most literate areas of rural Bengal.
