Damanjodi

^[1]

Damanjodi
—  city  —
Damanjodi Location of Damanjodi in Orissa and India
Coordinates	18°49′N 82°43′E / 18.82°N 82.72°E / 18.82; 82.72Coordinates: 18°49′N 82°43′E / 18.82°N 82.72°E / 18.82; 82.72
Country	India
State	Orissa
District(s)	Koraput
Population	8,475 (2001[update])
Time zone	IST (UTC+05:30)

Damanjodi is a small town in the culturally rich and beautiful Koraput district in the Indian state of Orissa. It is primarily a hilly area with outstanding natural beauty and scarce population. A vast majority of the population of Damanjodi comprises the employees of National Aluminium Company (NALCO), Asia's largest and the world's seventh largest producer of aluminium. Most of the population is cosmopolitan as the employees hail from all parts of the country.

Geography

Damanjodi is a valley situated among the panchpatmali hills

NALCO

National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) is Asia's largest integrated aluminium complex, encompassing bauxite mining (known as the Panchapatmali mines), alumina refining, aluminium smelting and casting, power generation, rail and port operations. NALCO is also involved in community development.

NALCO Township

Damanjodi is made up of 3 regions or sectors. These sectors comprise housing quarters laid out in well-planned lanes and streets. These are occupied by the higher officials of the company (NALCO). The whole town is beautifully planned and picturesquely set out in this hill paradise.

Two large co-operative stores, a couple of market complexes, clubs, community centres, temples and mosques make this town very self-sufficient and self sustaining. A well-developed water supply and treatment plant, hospitals, NALCO's uninterrupted captive power supply, nationalised banks with a good number of networked ATMs, all come together as a boon to this hilltop town. The town also has excellent cellular phone service from two of the nation's topmost service providers, BSNL, Reliance Smart, tata docomo, and AirTel, vodafone, uninor.

Demographics

As of 2001^[update] India census,^[2] Damanjodi had a population of 8475. Males constitute 54% of the population and females 46%. Damanjodi has an average literacy rate of 83%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 85% and, female literacy is 81%. In Damanjodi, 14% of the population is under 6 years of age.

NALCO Mines

Also popular as "Panchpatmali Mines"(meaning : The Mine is surrounded by Five Hills).

It has a reserve of bauxite ore for about 120 years for the continuous production of alumina, and then aluminium. However, those estimations were based on an annual extraction of 240,000 tons of bauxite from the mines.

Education

Saraswati Vidaya Mandir and Delhi Public School^[3] are two important schools in this township providing primary education.

Adding to the above Government High Schools as well as Private Schools are also there. Shri Aurobindo Complete Study Circle, Malushanta govt. High School etc.

Transportation

The town of Damanjodi has many surrounding places worth visiting. The HAL engine division in the adjacent town of Sunabeda is just a few minutes by road and is another well planned, self-sustaining township.

Damanjodi is well connected by local and government bus and rail services to the nearest town of Koraput, the larger town of Jeypore, the township of Sunabeda and many other major towns and cities of the state of Orissa. The rail connectivity has daily direct trains to the cities of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Howrah, Kolkata (West Bengal), and the capital city of Bhubaneshwar. The local bus services tend to thin out in the later part of the day, so planning accordingly is necessary. The nearest airport is 4 hours away in the city of Visakhapatnam. There are direct bus and rail services at various times of the day to and from Visakhapatnam. There are a number of hotels in and around the town. NALCO has two guest houses for visitors, one of which, the Shaila Niwas, compares to a semi-luxury hotel.

See also

Koraput travel guide from Wikitravel

References

1. ^ Damanjodi blog
2. ^ "Census of India 2001: Data from the 2001 Census, including cities, villages and towns (Provisional)". Census Commission of India. Archived from the original on 2004-06-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20040616075334/http://www.censusindia.net/results/town.php?stad=A&state5=999. Retrieved 2008-11-01. 
3. ^ Delhi Public School