This is the address of a famous
person, Mr.Butto Kristo Paul (B.K.Paul). He was the founder of the greatest
medicine manufacturing company in Kolkata.
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| Butto Kristo Paul |
One can always explore new things within or outside of one’s own place. For example, I have never been to this
building before, which is situated in north Kolkata. The building is 158 years old but
for me it’s a new place to explore.
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| B.K.Paul's house (now a heritage building) |
I met Mr. Arindam Paul, fifth
generation of B.K.Paul, who explained quite a bit about the history of the Empire. B.K.Paul was a resident of Shibpur & he came to north Kolkata at his
uncle’s house when he was 12 years old. He started working in a homoeopathy
medical shop & later his first medical shop was established in Kherapati
Barabazar. This was the place where he started expanding his business. After
that, every medical equipments like- medicine, surgical tools, etc belonged to
B.K.Paul Company. He opened this medical shop inside the house in the year 1858
just 3 years after the construction of this heritage building.
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| Medical shop inside the building |
The business moved to a new level
when a medicine called Edwards Tonic was made & widely distributed. Still
now it is used and sold here.
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| EDWARDS TONIC medicine |
His son Harishankar Paul made the
business global by expanding it to London.
Kolkata has a rich cultural heritage. But because of the pollution & poor maintenance, the city is losing its cultural charm. Previously there were some provisions for preservation and conservation of this heritage in the West Bengal Town and Country (Planning & Development) Act, 1979. Later in 1997 an expert Committee was set up in order to supervise the modification, enlistment and maintenance of all Heritage Buildings, Monuments, Precincts and sites within the purview of entire State of West Bengal. Accordingly the West Bengal Heritage Commission Act, 2001 has been enacted with effect from the 1st day of August, 2001.
163 buildings in Kolkata has been declared as Heritage Buildings so far, and documentation of around 200 buildings have been done out of identified buildings by the Expert Committee.
Presently the B.K. Paul’s medical shop is run by the fourth generation of Paul family (Barun Kumar Paul, Anup Kumar Paul, Ashok Kumar Paul).
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| The traditional doorbell is still being used today |
This is indeed fascinating for me! I thought that the first pharmaceutical company was the Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works Ltd(BCPWL) , Calcutta which was founded by Acharya P.C. Roy with the assistance of a number of illustrious and eminent medical doctors of that time ; as per web information, it was founded on April 12, 1901.But now after finding this company namely B K Paul &Co, I am curious to know what products were being manufactured in the factory premises.Or was it only an importer and distributor of medicines? And , when was it founded?
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