EARLY YEARS OF SACRED HEART KHARAGPUR

A project of 1887 was undertaken by the enterprising Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) for transcontinental connection by laying the Nagpur Asansol line. The work ended on 1891 taking Chakradharpur a remote village to become a high ranking railway station, giving its first Chaplin, a Parish Priest from a nearby Bongaon name Fr. Mullender.

This was just a small taste of its success while major obstacles were on its way, one such was BNR, and it depended on East India Railway (EIR) which was its rival to reach Calcutta. BNR needed a personal gateway into Calcutta, to do so a new line was planned which had its beginning from Sini, passing south of Midnapore to reach Howrah. By now the BNR started to grow expanding its operations towards Orissa, finally joining with the state line that was built from Madras towards the North, along the coast. With this a small unknown village Kharagpur seeming a healthy place for residence comes into picture making it a runway towards the south.

This newly discovered village became center of attraction; in 1897 the Archbishop Mgr. Goethals made Kharagpur his closest mission station. On the other hand the village got its first Parish Priest Fr. Van Severen who visited 15 families of European and Anglo-Indians residing in Kharagpur. From 1901 Fr. Hipp who was teaching in St. Xavier’s became the Sunday Parish Priest of Kharagpur. SACRED HEART KHARAGPUR