Lohardaga
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lohardaga is a town which is also the district headquarters of Lohardaga district, Jharkhand. It was established in 1983 after it was separated from Ranchi district of Chhota Nagpur region. It has five blocks namely:LOHARDAGA, KURU, BHANDRA, KISKO & SENHA. This district has a pace setting institution Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Yojna in the block Senha.state, India.
Lohardaga was India's smallest district in area, now the smallest district is Pakur in Jharkhand.
Earlier (early 1900s) Lohardaga was the commissionary headquarters for Chotanagpur. See:http://lohardaga.nic.in/history.htm It was only later that the commissionary of Chotanagpur was shifted to Ranchi. The commissioner's office still exists and it houses the Lohardaga Municipality office.
Other information on this district is as follows:
Lohardaga district in Jharkhand is situated between 84 degrees 40' - 84 degrees 50' east longitude and 23030' - 23040’ north latitude. The geographical area of the district is 1491 square kilometers. There are 5 development blocks & 354 revenue villages. Total number of household are 50,374 out of which 91% were in the rural areas (1991 census).
In 2001, Lohardaga had a total population of 3.64 lakh (population density of 244 per square kilometre), growing 26.14% since 1991, which is higher than the population growth rate of Jharkhand at 23.19%. Sex ratio in Lohardaga improved from 971 to 976 over these years and literacy improved from 41% to 54%. Female literacy grew from 26% to 40%.
The net sown area is only 55% of the total area of the district. Two blocks i.e. Kisko & Senha have large area under dense forest cover. The forest cover is around 32-35% of the total area of the district. The average land holding per household is 1.65 Ha. The per capita agriculture land is around 0.28 Ha. Net irrigated area is 13.4% of net sown area (0.8% by canals, 7% by wells, 2% by tanks & 3.6% by lift irrigation & others).
Most of the villages except the hilly pockets of the district are connected with the roads. Still some of the hamlets have no linking roads. Electricity is supplied from Patratu Thermal Power Station which is in the Hazaribagh district. Out of 354 villages only 25 have rural electrification. Water supply system is not available in rural area. The villagers get their drinking water from tube wells and dug wells.
There are 318 primary schools, 68 middle schools, 20 High schools, 2 higher secondary schools and one college in the district. In this district, there is a district hospital, one referral hospital, five primary health sub-centres, ten additional primary health centres, seventy three health sub-centres.
The inhabitants of this district mainly depend on agriculture, forest produce and seasonal migration to different parts of the country. 80% of the population depends upon agriculture. The main crop of this area is paddy. In the small irrigated area wheat is grown to meet the annual food sufficiency. Also this district is linked with larger vegetable markets like Jamshedpur, Rourkela and Calcutta. There is a cold storage in the district. But profitable vegetable cultivation is being limited to road side non-tribals. Generally, villagers of the district keep plough animals. Also they keep goats and poultry birds as buffer. Although there is a dairy chilling plant in the district head quarter, dairy is practised by very few people mainly non-tribal.
Development Administration
The Deputy Commissioner is the head of the district administration and is ex-officio chairman of various societies, agencies that are involved in the development of the district. Various societies and the Governmental agencies which are in the direct control of the Deputy Commissioner are DRDA, MESO, Central Sponsored Social Sector Schemes, Welfare Schemes, Total Literacy Mission and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Various Societies constituted for Health Services. Among NGOs PRADAN(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRADAN) and LGSS are active in the District. PRADAN works with over 8,000 families around issus of micro-irrigation, decentralised poultry, dairy, commercial agriculture, etc. and has been active in this district since 1992
No panchayat elections have been held in the State after 72/73rd amendments in the Constitution of India. Therefore as per the direction of the Government, Deputy Commissioner is ex-officio Chairman of District Rural Development Agency which plans, implements, supervises and monitors various Central Sponsored and State Sponsored Schemes. The DDC is ex-officio Managing Director of DRDA as well as Chief Executive Officer. There are five blocks in the district. On the block level BDOs are involved in developmental works of the respective blocks. Under the BDOs, there are Panchayatsewak and Jansewaks at the panchayat level.
Besides the agencies which have been described above there are various line departments which also plan, implement, supervise and monitor the schemes as per the instructions of their department. They are Agriculture, Soil Conservation, Forest, Welfare, Fisheries, Education, P.H.E.D., R.E.O., P.W.D.(Road), Minor Irrigation, Co-operative, Electricity, Telecommunication, Industries and Mining. Also there is a Meso office to implement various developmental schemes for the tribals. All these line departments though work under their respective controlling officer of the department, they are indirectly under control of the District Administration. Almost every line departments has a divisional office at the district level. There is also a 20-Point programme implementation committee at the district level under the Chairmanship of Minister of the State Government, who is appointed by the State Government. Deputy Commissioner is ex-officio secretary of the committee. This committee supervises, monitors, the implementation of the schemes of the line department.
Also see: http://lohardaga.nic.in/ (Govt. website for the District)
