Kumartuli Park Sarbojanin Durgotsab was established in 1931 at Hatkhola, close to Bagbazar and the Sovabazar ferry ghat in North Kolkata (its address today is 1/A Durgacharan Banerjee Street). In 1938, the committee appointed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as its president — and it was Bose who proposed a specific, lasting change to the idol itself: switching it from the older ekchala form (Durga and her children framed within a single arch) to the more elaborate panchachala form, as a way of keeping the tradition from growing stagnant.
The puja sits right beside Kumortuli, the riverside colony of potters and sculptors who hand-build the clay idols worshipped not just across Kolkata but in pandals well beyond the city and, increasingly, abroad. That proximity gives the puja a particular resonance: it's organised, in effect, on the doorstep of the very artisans whose work makes the whole festival possible.