Balasore district


Balasore District also known as Baleswar District or Baleshwar District, is an administrative district of Odisha state in eastern India. Balasore is one of the coastal Districts of Odisha. It lies on the northernmost part of the state. It was a part of the ancient Kalinga which later became a territory of Toshal or Utkal.

Geography

Balasore district is located in the northeast of the state of Odisha and lies between 21° 3' to 21° 59' north latitude and 86° 20' to 87° 29' east longitude. The average altitude of the district is 19.08-metre. The district has a total area of 3634 km2. It is bounded by East Midnapore and West Midnapore district of West Bengal in its North, the Bay of Bengal in the east, Bhadrak district in the South and Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts on its western side.

Divisions

is the district headquarters. The district is further divided into 2 subdivisions, 12 blocks for undertaking developmental works in the rural areas, 12 tehsils for revenue and administrative purposes and 289 Gram Panchayats. Besides there are 4 towns consisting of 3 municipality and 1 NACs. These local bodies look into civic aspects of urban areas. Also, there are 2971 villages, out of which 2602 are inhabited.

Transport

falls en route on the main line connecting Chennai to Kolkata. NH 16 runs through Balasore, and NH 60, which connects Balasore to Kolkata, is a four lane express way.
The nearest airport from Balasore is Biju Patnaik International Airport, Bhubaneswar.
Balasore runs state Buses of which provide point to point service from Kolkata to Bhubneswar.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census Balasore district has a population of 2,320,529, roughly equal to the nation of Latvia or the US state of New Mexico. This gives it a ranking of 195th in India. The district has a population density of . Its population growth rate over the decade 2001–2011 was 14.47%. Balasore has a sex ratio of 957 females for every 1000 males, and a literacy rate of 80.66%.

Languages

At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 88.30% of the population in the district spoke Odia, 4.11% Santali, 3.39% Urdu, 1.30% Bengali and 0.67% Hindi as their first language.
The primary language is Odia. Other languages include Bhunjia, spoken by approximately 7000 Bhunjia Adivasis and Santali.

Politics

The district has 1 Loksabha constituency and 8 Vidhan Sabha constituencies.

Vidhan sabha constituencies

The following is the 8 Vidhan sabha constituencies of Balasore district and the elected members of that area:
No.ConstituencyReservationExtent of the Assembly Constituency Member of 14th AssemblyParty
35Jaleswar-Jaleswar, Jaleswar, Basta Aswini PatraBJD
36Bhogarai-BhogaraiAnanta DasBJD
37Basta-Baliapal, Basta Nityanad DasBJD
38Balasore-Balasore, Balasore Jiban Pradip DashBJD
39RemunaSCRemuna, Balasore Govinda DasBJP
40Nilagiri-Nilagiri, Nilagiri, Oupada, Bahanaga Sukanta Kumar NayakBJD
41SoroSCSoro, Soro, Bahanaga Parshuram DhadaBJD
42Simulia-Simulia, KhairaJyoti Prakash PanigrahiBJD