Martur

Martur
mandal
Martur Location in Andhra Pradesh, India
Coordinates: 15°58′00″N 80°06′00″E / 15.9667°N 80.1000°E / 15.9667; 80.1000Coordinates: 15°58′00″N 80°06′00″E / 15.9667°N 80.1000°E / 15.9667; 80.1000
Country	India
State	Andhra Pradesh
District	Prakasam
Talukas	Martur
Languages
• Official	Telugu
Time zone	IST (UTC+5:30)
PIN	523301

Martur or Maruturu is a village and a Mandal in Prakasam district in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.^[1]

Geography

Martur is located at 15°58′00″N 80°06′00″E / 15.9667°N 80.1000°E / 15.9667; 80.1000.^[2] It has an average elevation of 30 meters (101 feet).

Demographics

The population consist of Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

Administration

The town is administered by the Gram Panchayat (Village administrative unit) for sanitation etc. The Mandal parishat and Zilla parishat control a few subjects such as education under their control. The District administration controlled by the Government of Andhra Pradesh practically controls the majority of the issues E.g. land revenue, industries etc.

History

Martur is a small town on the National Highway connecting Kolkatta (earlier Calcutta) with Chennai (earlier Madras). It is about 360 km. north of Chennai. It is the northern most town in prakasam district. The district of Guntur is about 40 km. from Martur. Prakasam district was promoted for establishing industries as a government policy to improve under developed areas. As some incentives were offered by the government and abundant availability of labour, good road connectivity, proximity of sources for building materials, hard soil with some ground water potential, the place attracted businessmen from Guntur to set up tobacco processing units in the period from 1960 to 1980. Golden Tobacco company, Sundaram tobaccos, Maddi Laxmayya, Dodda Gopala swamy and company among various other units were established here. Tobacco was also vastly grown in the surrounding areas. At present few tobacco processing units operate from this town.

Later in the early eighties of the 20th century, the cropping pattern in the area shifted primarily to cotton and few cotton ginning mills were established. As most of the units were established by enterprising families from farming back ground, they had to wind up by 1987 as the cotton crop failed for successive years due to attack of white fly and bull-worm. However Amaravati Spinning Mill, a unit manufacturing yarn from cotton is well established to date.

After 1990, Stone cutting and polishing units sprang up as a cottage industry. As Granite stone was quarried in the vicinity, raw material was available in plenty. The scale and number of units have gone up considerably and today apart from cultivation, Stone cutting and polishing industry is the life line of the town. More than 250 Granite factories are available which give work to over 10,000 laborers. People from Orissa and Rajasthan come here for work.

In addition to this, Real state sector in Martur is at higher pace. In spite of being a small town apartment culture already started and in few areas land rates are higher than Guntur.

Education

Martur had a Government run High school since 1980. In the year 1982, a private school called Vivekananda Vidyalaya was established. Soon another school called Kakatiya School also was established by Mr. Ganeshuni Rattaiah, a noted industrialist. Royal school run by Mr. p.ravindra babu has made its presence felt. In the later part of first decade of this century Vivekananda school was taken over by harshini School based at the district head quarter Ongole.

Many temples don the town. Shivalayam temple, east of the national highway and in the old village area is a prominent temple. Few other new temples including Kanaka Durga temple are visited by the devotees. A mosque and church were also established long ago. Now its become the very business center for granite business making its lineup with all over the world ... exports. But politically it is losing its shine than earlier because of the reshuffling of the constituencies

Population

Martur town population is 21,687 according to 2011 census and this town consist of 10,987 voters.It consist of all religious peoples. mainly using the languages to communicate is Telugu,Urdu.

Transportation

The National highway is being developed into an access controlled six lane highway from the present four lane road. The nearest rail link is at Narasarao pet on Guntur-Kurnool line. (Broad Gauge). Chirala is the nearest rail head on the Major Vijayawada-Chennai line. However, Ongole is the railway station easily accessible. Guntur, Piduguralla and Vijayawada railway stations also serve commuters. The nearest Airport is Vijayawada (Gannavaram) at a distance of 105 KM. Hyderabad Airport (310 km) and Chennai Airport (365 KM) are the major Airports used by the commuters.

Assembly Constituency

Martur was an assembly constituency in Andhra Pradesh since 1952 to 2004 except few years in between. The Assembly constituency was abolished in the year 2009 due to delimitation of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies. Now the town comes under Parchur Assembly constituency and Bapatla Parliamentary constituency. Mr. Daggubati Venkateswara rao is the elected MLA. The Gram panchayat elections are due and may be held in the year 2012. There are 1,61,988 registered voters in Martur constituency as per 1999 elections.

Martur is an Hub for Telugu Desam Party and TDP has strong roots. Congress registered its first victory in 1962 and thereafter no congress candidate was elected till 2004 when Mr. Ravi Kumar got elected as INC candidate against to his brother, sitting MLA Gottipati Narasimha Rao.

List of Elected Members:

References