BANKURA

town, western West Bengal state, northeastern India. It lies just north of the Dhaleswari (Dhalkisor) River. As a major Grand Trunk Road and rail junction, Bankura is an agricultural distributing centre. Rice and oilseed milling, cotton weaving, metalware manufacture, and railway workshops are the major industries. Constituted a municipality in 1869, Bankura has several colleges, including a medical school, affiliated with the University of Burdwan. Bankura lies on a densely populated alluvial plain. Rice, wheat, corn (maize), and sugarcane are the chief crops in the surrounding agricultural area; mica, china clay, iron-ore, lead, zinc, and wolframite deposits are also worked in the locality. The area long remained a focus of Hindu culture based on the Mallabhum kingdom, with its capital at Bishnupur. Pop. (1981) town, 94,954.