Cuttack — The Silver City and Odisha's Commercial Heart

Cuttack is Odisha's original capital and its oldest continuously inhabited major settlement. It was the seat of Odisha's rulers for nearly a millennium — from the Somavamshi kings through the Gajapati empire — before the colonial capital moved to Bhubaneswar in 1948. For most of Odisha's recorded history, if you wanted to understand the state, you went to Cuttack.

The city's relationship with Bhubaneswar — its partner in the twin-city agglomeration that forms Odisha's urban core — is one of complementarity and occasional competition. Bhubaneswar has the government, the new institutions, the technology sector. Cuttack has the commerce, the courts, the history, and a cultural confidence that comes from being older.

What Cuttack is

The commercial capital. Cuttack has been a trading city for longer than most Indian cities have existed. Its position on the Mahanadi delta — at the confluence of the Mahanadi and Kathjodi rivers — made it a natural trade hub for centuries. The silver filigree (tarakasi) tradition that Cuttack is famous for grew from its position as a centre of skilled craft and commerce. Today, Cuttack's Balu Bazar and Chandi Chowk remain among Odisha's most active commercial districts, and the city's wholesale markets supply retailers across the state.

The judicial capital. The Orissa High Court is located in Cuttack, giving the city continued significance as the seat of Odisha's judiciary. The legal community that has grown around the High Court — advocates, legal support services, documentation — is a significant part of the city's professional economy.

The educational centre. Ravenshaw University, founded in 1868, is one of India's oldest universities and Odisha's most storied institution of higher learning. SCB Medical College and Hospital, one of eastern India's major public hospitals, is in Cuttack. Cuttack's educational concentration has been supplemented but not superseded by Bhubaneswar's newer institutions.

The cultural city. Cuttack's Dussehra celebration — with its elaborate pandals displaying silver-worked effigies of deities — is one of Odisha's most famous festivals, drawing visitors from across the state and beyond. Bali Yatra, the annual trade fair commemorating Odisha's ancient maritime connections to Southeast Asia, is one of Asia's largest open-air trade fairs by participant count. The silver filigree workshops of Cuttack are among India's finest examples of traditional metalcraft.

The geography that shaped it

Cuttack's location at the apex of the Mahanadi delta — surrounded by rivers, historically prone to flooding, situated on a sliver of elevated land between waterways — gave it both its strategic importance and its perpetual challenge. The rivers that made it a trading hub also made it vulnerable. The flood embankments (bandhas) built to protect the city are among the most significant pieces of pre-modern hydraulic engineering in eastern India.

The rivers are also the city's defining aesthetic. The view from the Barabati Fort — the medieval fortification that sits at the edge of the Mahanadi — looking across the broad river to the opposite bank is one of the more striking urban vistas in Odisha.

The twin-city dynamic

The Bhubaneswar-Cuttack metropolitan region is effectively a single urban economy spread across two adjacent cities separated by about 25 kilometres. Most people who work in one city live in or near the other. The highway between them is one of the busiest in Odisha. The functional distinction between the cities — government and technology in Bhubaneswar, commerce and judiciary in Cuttack — makes them more complementary than competitive, though civic pride on both sides sometimes obscures this.

The combined metropolitan population is in the range of 1.5-2 million, making it easily Odisha's largest urban area and a significant regional economic hub for eastern India.

What Cuttack is becoming

Cuttack's development challenge is the standard one for historically important cities in rapidly changing economies: how to preserve the commercial and cultural foundations that give it identity while adapting to the economic structures of the present.

The commercial core is evolving, with modern retail gradually supplementing the traditional market infrastructure. Healthcare has expanded significantly, with private hospitals and specialty care joining the public SCB Medical College ecosystem. The education sector continues to attract students from across Odisha.

What Cuttack has not yet developed is a significant presence in the technology and knowledge economy that Bhubaneswar has been building. Whether it needs to — or whether the specialisation between the two cities is a strength rather than a gap — is a question about how the twin-city economy develops.

The city's silver filigree tradition, its festivals, its commercial heritage, and its judicial and educational institutions give it a foundation that is genuinely distinctive. Cities with that kind of layered identity tend to have more durable economic positions than those that built entirely around a single sector. Cuttack's history is an asset, not just a story.