Gandhidham

Gandhidham Sardar Ganj
Gandhidham
Nickname(s): Sardar Ganj
Gandhidham Location in Gujarat, India
Coordinates: 23°05′N 70°08′E / 23.08°N 70.13°E / 23.08; 70.13Coordinates: 23°05′N 70°08′E / 23.08°N 70.13°E / 23.08; 70.13
Country	India
State	Gujarat
District	Katch
Municipality	Gandhidham Municipality
Elevation	27 m (89 ft)
Population (2011)
• Total	248,000
Languages
• Official	Gujarati, Hindi, Kutchi, SindhiSindhi = IST
PIN	370201
Telephone code	02836
Vehicle registration	GJ-12
Sex ratio	0.894 ♂/♀
Distance from Bhuj	60 kilometres (37 mi)
Distance from Gandhinagar	365 kilometres (227 mi)

Gandhidham is a city and a municipality in the Katch District of Gujarat state of India. The town was created in the early 1950s for the resettlement of the refugees from Sindh (now in Pakistan) in the aftermath of the partition of India. Gandhidham is an economic capital of Katch and it is a fast developing city in Gujarat state.

History

Soon after the separation of Pakistan from India in 1947, a large group of refugees from Sindh of Pakistan came to India. The Maharaja of Kutch His Highness Maharao Shri Vijayrajji Khengarji Jadeja, on the advice of Gandhiji, gave 15,000 acres (61 km²) of land to Bhai Pratap, who founded the Sindhi Resettlement Corporation to rehabilitate Sindhi Hindus uprooted from their motherland of Sindh in Pakistan^[1]

The Sindhi Resettlement Corporation was formed with Acharaya Kriplani as chairman and Bhai Pratap Dialdas as managing director. The main objective of the corporation was to assist in the rehousing of displaced persons by the construction of a new township. The original plan was prepared by a team of planners headed by Dr. O. H. Koenigsberger, director of the division of housing in the Government of India. Later, the plan was revised by Adams Howard and Greeley Company in 1952. The foundation stone of the town was laid with the blessings of Gandhi in 1947. Hence, the town was named Gandhidham.

It is said that it was a barren land with so many snakes and scorpions that Bhai Pratap had to offer a compensation of 25 paise to kill a scorpion and of 50 paise to kill a snake in the area.^[2] The original plan envisaged 400,000 as the ultimate population of the town, expecting half of it to be reached in the mid-seventies. A revised plan envisaged three stages of town development with the mid stage lasting longer with a population around 150,000.

Geography and Climate

Gandhidham is located at latitude 23.08° N longitude 70.13° E. The main city is constructed in accordance with the principles of Vastu-Shastra (Hindu belief of construction), i.e., the main city has its face directed to the East. Summers are hot and dry and frequently the temperature touches 45 °C (113 °F). In winters, it falls to 3 °C (37 °F) accompanied by cold waves.

Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot semi-arid (BSh).

Education

Gandhidham has several schools providing high school education. Gandhidham's first English Medium school is

• Modern School

Schools in the area include

• D.A.V. Public School
• Excelsior Model School, Adipur
• Bachpan Pre-School
• P.N. Amersey High School
• Twinkle Star School in 2B, plot No.48 (English Medium)
• Small Wonder School
• Delhi Public School
• Ananda Marga Primary school in Sector-7
• Ananda Marga High School in DC-2, Rambaug road (English Medium)
• Gurunanak Public School, Adipur and
• Gurunanak School for Excellence

The other schools are :-

• Mount Carmel High School
• Delhi Public High School(D.P.S)
• Kakubhai Parikh School(K.P.S)
• Saint Xaviers at Adipur
• Kendriya Vidyalaya at IFFCO colony
• Kendriya Vidyalaya at Railway colony
• Aum Vidiya Mandir at IFFCO colony
• Sadhu Vaswani International School
• Amarchand Singhvi School

and Hindi Medium Schools are

• Dr. C.G. High School and
• Adarsh Mahavidhyalaya is first and oldest school situated in the heart of the city.

For professional courses like Chartered Accountancy & Cost & Management Accountancy the national professional accounting body of India like Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Institute of Cost Accountants of India have opened an examination centre at Gandhidham.

College and graduation

Colleges for graduation and higher studies are Tolani college of Science & Arts, Tolani Commerce College, Pharmacy college and Diploma in Engineering, Management Institute situated nearby in Adipur .DNV International Educational College is situated in Bharatnagar,courses provided are BCA and BBA.

Transport

Gandhidham is connected by road and rail to the rest of India. Transport Nagar, on the outskirts of Gandhidham is the hub of all major transport activity. There are trains to, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Varanasi, Kanpur, Agra, Lucknow, Faizabad, Patna, Jodhpur, Ajmer, Alwar, Abu Road, Jaipur, Mumbai, Vadodara, Surat, Yesvantpur, Kalyan, Bhiwandi, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Indore, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kollam, Kota, Delhi, Durg, Guwahati, Puri, Chengannur, Jalgaon, Bhusaval, Raipur, Vizag, Nagercoil and several other cities. Many private companies operate bus services to major cities in Gujarat like Ahmedabad and Rajkot. India's largest port, Kandla is around 11 km from the city. Gandhidham also has its own airport called Kandla Airport or Galphadar Airport which is located six kilometers north of Gandhidham.Jet Airways used to operate the sole daily flight to Mumbai from Kandla airport^[4] before it ceased operations in 2012.

Trains

See also

• Kandla
• Adipur
• Galpadar
• Maheshwarinagar

References

1. ↑
2. ↑ "Bhai Pratap". The Sindhu Resettlement Corporation, Gandhidham, India. p. 1. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-09-28. To clean the desert where it was built, Bhai Pratap gave incentive of 25 paise to kill scorpions and 50 paise to kill snakes 
3. ↑ "Climate: Gandhidham - Climate graph, Temperature graph, Climate table". Climate-Data.org. Retrieved 2013-12-04. 
4. ↑ "Air Deccan connects yet another unconnected sector – brings Kandla into the aviation map". Peanuts! Online. 4 October 2006. Retrieved 29 February 2012. 

Further reading

• Kripalani, J. B. 1951. Gandhidham. Bombay: [Mangharam N. Thadani for the Sindhu Resettlement Corp.]
• Adams, Howard & Greely. 1952. Report on a revised plan for the town and region of Gandhidham, Kutch India, prepared for the Government of India Ministry of Transport, and the United States Department of State. [Boston: Adams, Howard & Greely].

External links

• Kandla Special Economic Zone
• Kandla Port Trust
• Arya Samaj, Gandhidham
• Tolani Foundation
• KutchForever.com - The First Internet Gateway of Kutch
• Sindhu Resettlement Corporation Limited (SRC Limited), Adipur
• Lions Club of Gandhidham Official website of Lions club of Gandhidham, India