Jhumri Tilaiya

Infobox Indian Jurisdiction
type = town
native_name = Jhumri Tilaiya
other_name = Jhumri Telaiya/Jhumri Talaiya
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state_name = Jharkhand
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latd = 24.43
longd= 85.52
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district = Kodarma
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population_total = 69,444
population_as_of = 2001
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area_telephone = 6534
postal_code = 825409
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Jhumri Tilaiya (also spelled as Jhumri Telaiya or Jhumri Talaiya) is a town situated in the north-western region of Koderma District in Jharkhand, India. It is one of the only two towns in the Koderma district, the other being Koderma.cite web
url=http://koderma.nic.in/koderma/overview.jsp
title=Official website of Koderma District: Overview
accessdate=2006-10-06] It is situated in the Damodar Valley.

History

Jhumri Tilaiya was once a major mica mining centre. While laying a railroad through Koderma in 1890s, the British first discovered vast mica deposits in this region.cite web
url=http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/May122006/sesame192202006511.asp
title=A rags to riches to rags story
accessdate=2006-10-06
publisher=Deccan Herald] Mining activities started soon after and many mining houses Chatu Ram Bhadani and Horil Ram Bhadani. CH Private Ltd. was the predecessor of Mica Kings, which controlled the largest share of mica mining and export activity in the world at a time.

Prosperous businessmen built huge mansions in Jhumri Tilaiya. Mercedes and Porsche cars, and thoroughbreds from Arabia used to be common in Jhumri Tilaiya. The town once boasted of most number of phone connections and phone calls made in India.

Most of the mica used to be exported to USSR, for space and military equipment. With the dissolution of the USSR and the discovery of a synthetic substitute for mica, the mining activity declined in 1990s. The huge mansions belonging to the mine owners, sprawling over acres of land, can still be found in the town. Mica Kings was still active in Jhumri Tilaiya as of 2007.

Vividh Bharati

Jhumri Tilaiya was originally a sleepy mining town, which became famous in India due to its connection with Vividh Bharati programmes. When television channels and FM radio stations were not common in India, the Vividh Bharati radio programmes were very popular. A large number of song requests for the Vividh Bharati programmes would come from Jhumri Tilaiya. Youngsters in the town would compete on who sent out the most song requests in a day or month. Almost all Vividh Bharati Radio listeners were aware of the name of this town.

Implications of the name

Some people used to doubt the existence of Jhumri Tilaiya, thinking of it as an imaginary place. The name also carried overtones of derision and insignificance. For instance the phrase "Medical Journal of Jhumri Tilaiya", would often refer to a shoddily produced, insignificant medical journal.

In many ways, Jhumri Tilaiya was an Indian equivalent of Timbuktoo, which also is widely considered to be an imaginary place.

This reference is made in several Hindi movies.Jhumri telaiya is made up of two words Jhumri which is a village in Jharkhand and telaiya which comes from Hindi word "Tal" means pond.Jhumri is also said to be Local folk dance.Some people considers its origin from "Jhuri" am local word which means bushes which is majorly used as fule for cooking in the villages.

Geography

Jhumri Tilaiya is located at coor d|24.43|N|85.52|E| [ [http://www.fallingrain.com/world/IN/38/Jumri_Tilaiya.html Falling Rain Genomics, Inc - Jhumri Tilaiya] ] . It has an average elevation of m to ft|384|m|abbr=on. It is situated about six kilometers from Koderma, close to Bodh Gaya. The entire town is divided by the grand cord line of Eastern Railway, which passes through the middle of the town.

Telaiya dam and reservoir

Telaiya dam is the first dam and hydro-electric power station constructed by the Damodar Valley Corporation across Damodar River. The dam is 1200 ft long and 99 ft high. The Telaiya reservoir is spread over 36 km² area. There are many educational institutes within the vicinity of Telaiya dam. The most famous of them is Sainik School ( Army School ) Telaiya. The entire area is surrounded by lush green vegetataion. This is an ideal place for a picnic. [cite web
url=http://koderma.nic.in/koderma/tourism.jsp
title=Official website of Koderma District: Tourism
accessdate=2006-10-06] . The main objective of the dam was controlling floods. There is a hydroelectric power station, which a capacity of 4MW. The dam and its surroundings are also a tourist attraction.

The reservoir was stocked with 181449 fingerlings of mrigal, 103480 fingerlings of rohu and 27211 fingerlings of catla fish in the year [1968] . This heavy stocking did not affect the fishery until 1970-71, largely due to the presence of the predatory catfish. Other predatory fish species such as Notopterus chitala and Barilius bola were also common.

Places of interest near Jhumri Tilaiya include Rajgir, Nalanda, Hazaribagh National Park, Sonbhandar Caves (rumored to have hidden Mauryan treasures), Sammed Shikhar (Jain pilgrimage), Dhwajadhari Hill, Satagawan Petro falls, the tomb of Sant Paramhans Baba at Domchanch, Makamaro Hills, and Shaktipeeth Maa Chanchala Devi.

Administration

Jhumri Tilaiya is situated in the Kodarma district of the newly built Jharkhand state which is separated from Bihar. The PIN code of Jhumri Tilaiya is 825409.

Transport

The nearest railway station is at Koderma, which is connected to Delhi, Kolkata, and Bhubaneswar. Buses, jeeps, and three wheelers connect Jhumri Tilaiya to Koderma. Bokaro (87 km) is another nearby major railway station.The other known nearby places are hazaribagh, Ramgarh,Giridih,etc

The nearest airport is Ranchi (162 km). Patna, the capital of Bihar state, is situated 175 km away from the town.

The highway that crosses Jhumri Telaiya is popularly known as Ranchi-Patna Road. The Koderma valley is famous for its U-turns.

Demographics

The most popular language is Magahi, spoken by the Mahuri Vaishya community of this town. Apart from this, Punjabi, Bengali, Marwari, Hindi and English are also spoken by people in this town. As of 2001 India census [GR|India] , Jhumri Tilaiya had a population of 69,444. Males constitute 53% of the population and females 47%. Jhumri Tilaiya has an average literacy rate of 62%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 72%, and female literacy is 52%. In Jhumri Tilaiya, 16% of the population is under 6 years of age.

Education

There are 12 primary schools, 8 upper schools,4 secondary schools, 2 higher secondary schools and 4 degree colleges in Jhumri Telaiyacite web
url=http://koderma.nic.in/koderma/education.jsp
title=Official website of Koderma District: Education
accessdate=2006-10-06] .

Schools
* Grizzly Vidyalaya : An ISO 2000:9001 Certifield, CBSE Affliated Resdential School.Located in the lap of Damoder Valley.
* Sainik School Tilaiya: It is the 12th in the chain of Sainik Schools established in different Indian states. It is a boys-only residential school and was established on September 16, 1963. It provides education from Class VI to XII.
* Gandhi High School
* Modern Public School
* Adarsh Vidyalaya(Mahatma Gandhi Marg)was established on 1974 by Sri Dhaneshwar Sharma.It provides education from Class Nursery to 10th.
* ST.Joseph School
* PVSS DAV Public School
* CD Girls High School (Founded by Mica Kings)
* CH High School ( Founded by Mica Kings)
* Purnima Vidya Mandir Telaiya (Founded by Mica Kings)
* MMLWO High School Karma
* Shri Digambar Jain VidyalayaColleges
* Chatthuram Horilram Intermediate College (CHIC)
* Jagannath Jain College (JJ College)
* Sharma school, Near Barkee Dhamrai, started on 1988.Nowadays Jhumri Telaiya has gained much prominence in terms of success in different competitive examinations like IIT, AFMC and other engg. and med. entrance examinations.

Events

* The Nirankari Regional-level Samagam for Bihar-Jharkhand was held at Jhumri Taliya on March 9, 2005 [cite web
url=http://www.nirankari.org/archive/photos/2005_bihar_jkhand/2005_bihar_jkhand.htm
title=Nirankari Regional-level Samagam
accessdate=2006-10-06]
* The 13th Bihar-Jharkhand State level Character Building Training Camp of All India Vivekananda Yuva Mahamandal was held at Jhumri Tilaiya on November 3 - 5, 2006.

Culture

Dussehra, Holi, Diwali and Durga Puja are the major festivals in Jhumari Tilaiya. Diwali was celeberated with large illuminations in Bhadani road where the houses of Mica Kings owners used to be illuminated and many people used to come from different places to see it. Even during the weddings in Mica king's family entire town used to be illuminated and many Bands from Kolkata to used to play. In one of the weddings in late 40's and early 50's at least 4 top bands had come from Kolkata. There use to be "Gowsala mela". During the mela many cows used to be decorated and many shops used to come up there. There was also a Jinz that there was ghost tree on the way to gowsala mela. Saraswati Puja is celebrated during Vasant Panchami in big fanfare by students and there used to be lot of cultural activities associated with it.It used to be a great day on Visarjan day(Last day before the deity is immersed in water) Holi used to celebrated with big fanfare with color water in the morning and applying of abeer in the evening.The little one's will apply abeer at the feet of elders.

The most popular sweet in the town is "kalakand" . It is a refined form of "mawa", tofu and sugar. The most popular restaurant is Kanaihya Mishtan. Earlier, there used to be "Bhatia Mistan Bhandar", which was famous for sweets; people passing by Patna-Ranchi] road would halt here for kalakand. Litte is also a delicious dish in this part as people eat it during the winter sitting in front of bonfire.

During the roaring mica business days, some prominent businessmen made futile attempts to produce movies. The town was cinema-crazy and people used to far-off places such as Dhanbad to be first to watch the movies. Now, there are two movie halls named Jawahar Talkies and Purnima Talkies. Movies of Mithun Chakraborty and Mandakini are very popular.

The main commercial area of the town is known as Jhanda Chowk. During the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, when the battalion of army used to pass by Jhanda Chowk, on the Patna Ranchi Road.

Cricket was introduced by families of South Indians employed by Mica Kings, in early 1960s. There used to be cricket tournament conducted by Sanik school where many schools from different parts of state along with CH high school would participate in sanik school grounds and it used to organized like a great match as the students used to come and cheer the team. It became a so popular game in the town,that after every test matches there used to street meetings to annalyise the match and many youngsters later played cricket at the University-leve. Cricket came to a standstill in the town after the mica business declined and people migrated to other places. Football matches were played in a grand way and many tournaments used to be held on CH school grounds.

The main residential areas of Jhumri Telaiya include Mahatma Gandhi Marg,Devi Mandop Road, Addi Bunglow Road and Ashram Road. The main commercial areas are Jhanda Chowk, Jawahar Talkies and Gauri Shankar Mohalla.

The tourist attractions include Dhawajadhari Pahar, Jharna Kund, and Telaiya Dam,Ithkhori.

References

External links

* [http://koderma.nic.in/koderma/map.jsp Thumbnail pictures of the Jhumri Tilaiya town and Telaiya dam]