On this day, the first President of India, Rajendra Prasad, dedicated the first steam locomotive to the country. The same day, the locomotive factory, where it was made, located in the Asansol Sadar subdivision of West Bengal, was named after the nationalist movement leader Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and came to be known as Chittaranjan Locomotive Works.
The locoworks were originally called Loco Building Works and were initially established for the production of 120 steam locomotives. Production of steam locomotives had commenced on January 26, 1950.
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Now, Chittaranjan Locomotive Works is the largest locomotive manufacturer unit in the world, which produced 431 locomotives in 2019–20.