Lalmonirhat is often called the gateway to the enclave lands. It sits on the northern tip of the country, hugging the Indian border. For decades, this district was famous for the complexity of the Dahagram-Angarpota enclaves and the Tin Bigha Corridor. This was a geopolitical oddity where pieces of Bangladesh were inside India and vice versa. While the land boundary agreement has solved most of these issues, visiting the Tin Bigha Corridor still gives you a shiver of history. It is a strip of land that represents the strange partition of 1947, and walking through it feels like walking through a living history lesson. The district gets its name from the red soil (Lal means red), although some say it is named after a red jewel or a local woman named Lalmoni. The railway history here is deep. The Moghalhat Railway Station was once a busy junction connecting to the Trans-Himalayan railway route, but now it stands abandoned, a ghostly reminder of the pre-partition era.
The crowning glory of the district is the Teesta Barrage at Dalia. It is the largest irrigation project in the country. The sheer scale of the concrete structure spanning the Teesta River is awe-inspiring. It controls the water flow for the entire northern region. The area around the barrage is beautifully developed with parks and walkways. In the evening, it becomes a carnival with thousands of visitors enjoying the breeze and the view of the sun setting over the water. The Burimari Land Port is another vital economic organ. It is one of the busiest land ports, handling tons of stone and coal imported from Bhutan and India. The dust and trucks at Burimari are a sharp contrast to the quiet, green paddy fields of the rest of the district.
Lalmonirhat is also experiencing an agricultural revolution with maize. As you drive through the district, you will see endless fields of corn. It has become the maize capital of the north, changing the economic status of many farmers. The Kakina Zamindar Bari offers a slice of feudal history. It was the home of the poet Sheikh Fazlul Karim. The library and the old buildings are still there, evoking a sense of literary past. Lalmonirhat is a district of borders, barrages, and new beginnings, moving away from its sleepy past into a bustling commercial future.