After the Battle of Buxar, 1764, the Mughals as well as the Nawabs of Bengal lost effective control over the territories then constituting the province of Bengal, which currently comprises the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, as also some parts of Bangladesh.
During the rule of the British East India Company in Bihar, Patna emerged as one of the most important commercial and trading centers of the East India, preceded only by Kolkata.