The Odisha State Maritime Museum, which has been set up at this Jobra Workshop, has 10 nos of galleries along with its ancillary components, as required in a modern museum. This location, which has a beginning around 1869 has the unique distinction of being the only workshop, which catered to the requirement of three provinces of Bihar, Bengal and Odisha under the Bengal Presidency of British India. It was set up by the then PWD department of British administration through the efforts of one Scottish Engineer Mr.G.H.Faulkner immediately after the great famine of 1866 in Odisha, known as "Naa Anka Durviksha".
The British administration took up the work of excavating the Coast Canal, Taladanda Canal and other irrigation projects to counter the effects of drought. This workshop was mainly catering to the need of anicuts, dams, canals and most important inland water transport system. At that time the access to Calcutta from Cuttack was only through a journey on river Mahanadi to the False Point near Paradeep and on sea up to Calcutta or from Chandabali to Calcutta.
