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Baburhat an inter-district wholesale centre well-known for trading in handloom textiles. Its full name is Shekherchar Baburhat. It is located at Shekherchar in Sadar upazila of narsingdi district on the bank of the brahmaputra, 35 km away from dhaka on the highway to sylhet. On the way from Dhaka to Shekherchar there is a small market known as Madhabdirhat or Madhabdi Baburhat. It is located in araihazar upazila of narayanganj district. It is said that the zamindar of the area, Ashu Babu, first set up the market at Madhabdi in the thirties of the last century. But for some reason there was a dispute between him and his brother Kali Babu, which led Kali Babu, Pramatha Babu and Gopal Babu to establish Baburhat market at Shekherchar. In a short while, this grew into a big market and has ever since been known as Baburhat. This region has for long been famous for handloom textiles. The weavers have been bringing their week's production here for sale to wholesalers. At one time, the market was approachable only by boat. During the Second World War, Momin Company built a road and introduced bus service. The railway station at
Narsingdi is close by. These days the wholesalers come to the market by river, rail and road. Once this area was famous for weaving muslin cloth and yarn for this superfine textile. But after the advent of the English, production of the yarn came to a halt. As a result, the weavers became dependent on machine made yarn. During the British rule, yarn used to come from England via Narayanganj. Towards the end of British rule, several textile mills such as Narayanganj, Dhakeshwari, Lakhsminarayan and Chittaranjan were set up. The excess yarn of the mills used to be sold to weavers through Baburhat. During the Pakistan period, Kaliganj Cotton Mill produced only yarn for the weavers.
At present, there are at least a thousand shops trading
in textiles in the market. At one time, it used to open for trading on
Sundays but nowadays, trading is done on three days a week. [Fazle Rabbi]
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