Silchar

During the British rule, ships were docked at the bank of the river Barak. Gradually, a market developed at the bank and became a major place of economic activity. The bank was covered with stones to help dock ships and vessels, and the market was developed at a place that was fully covered with stones. People started to refer to the place as Shiler Chor, meaning "a bank of stones". With the passage of time, Shiler Chor was simplified to Silchar, and ultimately the British officials started to use the name Silchar in their official documents referring to the surrounding area of the market. Thus Silchar became the official name of the place.[2]

• ONGC has its base located at Srikona, near Silchar, which is known as Cachar Forward Base with ongoing operations in Tripura, Mizoram and Barak Valley.[9]
• Cachar Paper Mill (CPM) is the only major industrial undertaking in south Assam and the adjoining states of Mizoram, Meghalaya and Tripura. Despite lack of infrastructural facilities in a remote location, CPM has a continuous record of steady improvement. During the year 2006-07, the mill recorded the highest annual production of 1,03,155 MT registering over 103% capacity utilization, which was 100% during the previous year.[10]

The first municipal activities in Silchar was in 1833. It had a station committee which had nominated members. The city had its first municipality in 1893.[11] Presently, it is governed by the Silchar Municipal Board.[12]

Silchar is located in the southernmost part of Assam.[13][14] It is located between longitudes 92º24’ E and 93º15’ E and latitudes 24º22’N and 25º8’N East and is 35 meters above mean sea level. The city is located in an alluvial flat plain with swamps, streams, and isolated small hills (locally known as tilla) marking its landscape. Apart from Barak river, the other major river is Ghagra river.[11] It falls under Zone V on the Seismic Zonation Map.[15]

According to 2011 India census, Silchar municipal area has a population of 1,72,830.[16] The sex ratio of Silchar is 989 females per 1,000 males, which is above the national ratio of 940 females per 1,000 males.[17] Silchar municipal area has an average literacy rate of 82.33%, higher than the national average of 74.04%, with male literacy at 84.15% and female literacy at 80.49%.[18][19]

Hinduism is the majority religion in Silchar city with around 1,54,381 followers. Islam is the second most popular religion in Silchar with approximately 21,759 followers. Jainism is followed by 1,408 peoples, Christianity by 1,052 peoples, Sikhism by 77 peoples and Buddhism by 39 peoples of Silchar city. Around 145 peoples didn't stated their religion.[20]

Silchar has a borderline tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am) slightly too hot in the “winter” or “cool” season to qualify as a humid subtropical climate (Cwa). During this “cool” season the weather is generally warm and dry with cool to mild mornings; however, the “wet” season begins early as the monsoon moves into the region during April, with the result that for seven months of the year Silchar has very hot and humid weather with heavy thunderstorms almost every afternoon until the middle of October, when there is usually a brief period of hot and relatively dry weather before the “cool” season sets in during November.

Silchar Airport (IXS) is located at Kumbhirgram, about 22 km from Silchar. Silchar has been selected as one of the towns for the construction of 51 low-cost airports across the country recently.[33]

In December 1985, Air India operated the first all-woman crew flight in the world from Kolkata to Silchar which was commanded by Captain Saudamini Deshmukh on a Fokker F-27 Friendship aircraft.[34]

Silchar is part of the Silchar (Lok Sabha constituency). The current member of Parliament from Silchar is Dr. Rajdeep Roy of the BJP.[35]

• Arun Kumar Chanda
• Nibaran Chandra Laskar
• Nihar Ranjan Laskar
• Nurul Huda
• Moinul Hoque Choudhury
• Ullaskar Dutta
• Santosh Mohan Dev
• Kabindra Purkayastha
• B. B. Bhattacharya
• Sushmita Dev
• Dilip Kumar Paul
• Kalika Prasad Bhattacharya
• Debojit Saha
• Swagata Sarkar

• Silchar railway station
• Silchar Airport
• Silchar Part-X
• Karimganj
• Hailakandi
• Patharkandi
• Badarpur

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Silchar.

• Silchar travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Britannica article on Silchar