Rayagada district


Rayagada is a district in southern Odisha, a state in India, which became a separate district in October 1992. Its population consists mainly of tribes, primarily the Khonds and the Soras. In addition to Odia, Kui and Sora are spoken by the district's indigenous population. It was founded by Maharajah Vishwanath Dev Gajapati of the Suryavansh dynasty of Jeypore.
Rayagada covers an area of, and is divided into eleven blocks. Agriculture is the chief source of income, and paddy, wheat, ragi, green and black gram, groundnut, sweet potato and maize are the district's major crops.

Administrative setup

The 11 Blocks and Tahasils in Rayagada district under two administrative Sub-Divisions are listed in the following table.
#Rayagada Sub-DivisionGunupur Sub-Division
1RayagadaGunupur
2KashipurGudari
3KalyansingpurPadmapur
4KolnaraRamanaguda
5Bissam Cuttack
6Muniguda
7Chandrapur

There are 17 Police Stations under the three Police Sub-Divisions in Rayagada district are listed in the following table.
#Rayagada Police Sub-DivisionGunupur Police Sub-DivisionBissam Cuttack Police Sub-Division
1Rayagada P.S.Gunupur P.S.Bissam Cuttack P.S.
2Seskhal P.S.Gudari P.S.Muniguda P.S.
3Tikiri P.S.Padmapur P.S.Ambadola P.S.
4Doraguda P.S.Puttasing P.S.Chandrapur P.S.
5Andirakanch P.S.
6Kashipur P.S.
7Chandili P.S., Jaykaypur
8Kalyansingpur P.S.
9Energy P.S., Rayagada

History

In the third century BC, during the reign of Ashoka, Odisha was part of the Kalinga empire. The hilly track between the Vamshadhara and Nagavali Rivers was known for its spices. The Rastriks were defeated by Kharvela, the emperor of Kalinga, during the battle of Chawpagada.
Vishwanath Dev Gajapati, the suryavanshi king of Nandapur established his capital on the bank of Nagavali and named it Rayagada or Rai-gadh. Under his rule the place flourished economically which proved beneficial to the vast kingdom that stretched from the confines of Jharkhand and West Bengal to River Godavari in south. During his reign he fought a war with Quli Qutb Mulk, the first Qutb Shahi Sultan of Golconda and successfully stopped his advance towards his kingdom. However, he had to surrender the rich fertile land located in the middle of Godavari-Krishna Delta to execute a peace treaty which made Godavari the border of the two kingdoms. Rayagada remained under the Kingdom of Jeypore until the dissolution act of 1947.
During the British Raj, Rayagada was under the then-newly demoted Jeypore Samasthanam and was part of Koraput district; it was carved from the district on 2 October 1992 as part of Odisha's district-expansion plan.

Economy

The district is reportedly rich in bauxite and silicon. In 2006, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Rayagada one of the country's 250 most backward districts. It is one of the 19 districts in Odisha receiving aid from the Backward Regions Grant Fund.

Constituencies

The district has three Odisha Legislative Assembly constituencies.
No.ConstituencyReservationBlocksMemberParty
138GunupurSTGunupur, Gudari, Gunupur, Gudari, Ramanaguda, PadampurTrinath GomangoBJD
139Bissam CuttackSTBissam Cuttack, Muniguda, ChandrapurJagannath SarakaBJD
140RayagadaSTRayagada, Kashipur, Kolnara, KalyansinghpurMakaranda MuduliIndependent

Rayagada district is part of the Koraput Lok Sabha constituency.

Rail transport

has direct service to Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Jamshedpur, Jodhpur and New Delhi. Gunupur is also an important railway station; via Parlakhemundi, it is connected to Naupada on the main east-coast railway line from Kolkata to Chennai by a broad-gauge line which was converted from narrow gauge in 2011. The narrow-gauge line was established by Gajpatirajas of Paralakhemundi, the former raja of Paralakhemedi, to connect his capital with Naupada. The government authorized construction in 1898, and the line was opened to traffic two years later at a cost of 700,000.
The East Coast Railway began in 1893 with construction of the Cuttack-Khurda Road-Puri line, and its subsequent link along the East Coast to Vijayawada was opened for traffic between 1893 and 1896. The railway brought service to Naupada in 1894.
Due to a policy change by the British government, the Bengal Nagpur Railway took over East Coast Railway's northern section from Vizianagaram to Cuttack, including the Puri branch line, by 23 January 1902. The PLR was also taken over by the Bengal Nagpur Railway that year. In its first few years, the PLR had incurred losses; after 1910 it began making a profit, which increased after 1924–25. This motivated the raja to extend the line to Gunupur in two phases in 1929 and 1931. There were now ten stations between Naupada and Gunupur: Tekkali, Paddasan, Temburu, Ganguvada, Patapatnam, Paralakhemedi, Kashinagar, Lihuri, Bansidhara and Palasingi. The standard PLR locomotive was a 20-ton 0-6-4 tank engine with coupled wheels and a 4.75-ton axle load.
Management of the BNR was taken over by the government of India in October 1944. On 14 April 1952, when Indian Railways was regrouped, it became part of the Eastern Railway. The merger was short-lived, however, and on 1 August 1955 it was merged with the new South Eastern Railway. A set of four postage stamps was released during the 1987 BNR centennial, one stamp featuring the PL 691 locomotive.
The foundation stone was laid for the Naupada-Gunupur gauge conversion at Naupada on 27 September 2002. On 1 April 2003, PLR became a part of the East Coast Railway. The line was closed for gauge conversion on 9 June 2004. Although the Khurda-Bolangir broad-gauge line was approved in 1995, only about half the work has been completed.

Demographics

Rayagada district had a population of 967,911 in the 2011 Census of India, roughly equal to that of Fiji or the US state of Montana. The district ranked 454th of India's 640 districts, and had a population density of. Its population growth rate from 2001 to2011 was 15.74 percent. Rayagada has a sex ratio of 1,048 females to 1,000 males, and a literacy rate of 50.88 percent.
At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 42.80% of the population in the district spoke Odia, 33.36% Kui, 10.43% Telugu, 8.37% Sora, 3.27% Kuvi and 0.66% Hindi as their first language.
The district's tribal population is 57.52 percent of the total. Its 11 blocks have been covered by a tribal sub-plan, with three micro-projects in operation for pre-literate indigenous tribal communities. Rayagada's topography helps the tribal communities maintain their cultural identity; is forested, of which is reserved forest. Its predominant tribes are the Khonds and the Soras.

Points of interest

, founded in 1938, is one of the district's oldest high schools. Government Girls' High School, in Rayagada, was founded in 1964. Other schools in Rayagada are Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sacred Heart School, Deepti Convent School, Maharshi Vidya Mandir, St. Xavier's High School and N.V.R Educational Institution. A primary school was founded at the Thakkar Bapa Ashram in 1958 for tribal students. The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya of Rayagada is a
central government boarding school in Therubali (earlier in Bissam Cuttack.
Rayagada Autonomous College is affiliated with Berhampur University. The Utkal Gourav Madhusudan Institute of Technology is an engineering school. The Gandhi Institute of Engineering and Technology is in Gunupur. College of Nursing affiliated with Berhampur University, managed by the Christian Hospital, Bissam Cuttack offers B.Sc. Nursing program.