Sidhi district

History

Sidhi is a part of Madhya Pradesh, an image of proud history and culture. It forms the northeastern boundary of the state. Sidhi is well known for its natural beauty, historical importance and rich cultural roots. Sidhi possesses abundant natural resources with the river Sone draining the district, and with coal deposits which feed major industries across the country.

Divisions

Sidhi district comprises six tehsils: Gopad Banas, Churhat, Rampur Naikin, Majhauli, Kusmi and Sihawal. There are four Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha constituencies in this district, namely, Churhat, Sidhi, Sihawal and Dhauhani. All of these are part of Sidhi Lok Sabha constituency.

Economy

The Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station supplies electricity over a wide area. On one side the spectrum of its floristic socio-cultural diversity and ethnic history of tribal, the district has a panoramic view of the Kaimur, Kehejua and Ranimunda hills blazing with flowers of flame of forest and intoxicated by the sweet smell of mahua flowers. The whole of Sidhi district was part of Rewa state.

In 2006 the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Chamba one of the country's 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640). It is one of the 24 districts in Madhya Pradesh currently receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF).

Rulers of Sidhi

In the 1800s, there were three separate rulers of Sidhi, ruling three parts of the territory:

After these came the Rajput Baghelas came from Kasauta, Rewa. They immigrated to Sidhi in early 19th century. They ruled the western Sidhi territory (Churhat/Rampur) from then on till India gained independence. The last ruler of Churhat was Rao RanBahadur Singhji- elder brother of Arjun Singh.

Raja Kant Deo Singh of Bardi Khatai continues to live in the ancestral Haveli located on the banks of the river Sone. He is an active member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Geography

Sidhi district is located on the Northeastern Boundary of the state between 22,475 and 24.4210 North Latitude and 81:1840 and 824830 East longitude. The district has Singrauli district in the north-east, Koriya district of Chhattisgarh on the east, and Rewa district on the west.

Sidhi District has a total population of 18,31,152 sharing almost 3.03%of the total population of erstwhile state of Madhya Pradesh in 2001.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census, Sidhi District has a population of 1,126,515, roughly equal to the nation of Cyprus or the US state of Rhode Island. This gives it a ranking of 411th in India (out of a total of 640). The district has a population density of 232 inhabitants per square kilometre (600/sq mi) . Its population growth rate over the decade 2001-2011 was 23.66%. Sidhi has a sex ratio of 952 females for every 1000 males, and a literacy rate of 66.09%.

Languages

Among the languages spoken in Sidhi are Bagheli, which has a lexical similarity of 72-91% with Hindi (compared to 60% for German and English) and is spoken by about 7,800,000 people in Bagelkhand; and Gondi, a Dravidian language spoken by at least 200,000 members of the Gond tribe and written in the Devanagari script.

Education in Sidhi

In 1980, at the time when Arjun Singh was the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, a committee was formed to find out more about the educational system in Sidhi district. It was tasked to find out which was the first school in Sidhi district, and also, who was the first graduate.

It was popularly thought that Rajasahab Madhwas was the first graduate from Sidhi. The survey further revealed that Shri Divakar Bahadur Singh, village Jhalwar (Churhat), was the first graduate from Allahabad University. He had done his BA in 1924 and had proceeded to do his LLB also from Allahabd University in 1926. Thereafter he had come back to practice and settle in Jhalwar (Churaht) in Sidhi district. His successors are still present in Jhalwar. Among them, Batuk Pratap Singh (Jhalwar) is the source of information regarding the history events in the district.

It was also found that the first school in Sidhi was in Bardi. This school had started around 100 years before the survey, i.e., around the year 1880

Schools

Colleges/Institutions in Sidhi

Notable people

Tourist Places