CENSUS OF INDIA, 1961 ORISSA DISTRICT CENSUS HANDBOOK KALAHANDI - M. AHMED, I.A.B. Superintendent of Census Operations Orissa CENSUS -OF INDIA, 1961 DISTRICT CENSUS HANDBOOK KALAHANDI PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY SUPERINTENDENT. ORISSA GOVERNMENT PRESS CUTTACK, 1965 RAJBHAVAN BHUBANESWAR Tfl!,_9t1!;Augl.lst, 1965 GOVERNOR, ORISSA FOREWORD THE State of Orissa represents 4·9 per cent of the area and 4·02 per cent ;'f th~ p(;pul:tion of India. Nature has been generous in providing the State with untold wealth in minerals, :water, fertile land and forests. The rich alluvial soil in the deltaic areas as well as along the river basins, as also most of the uplands, are capable of producing a large variety of crops. The water-shed areas of the major rivers and hill tracts are covered with vast forests of great economic value. The State has roughly half the mineral wealth of India hidden underground awaiting exploitation. Vast quantities of water flow down the rivers which, fortunately for Orissa, are strategically dispersed over the entire State, and, if harnessed properly, will banish the twin spectre of floods and droughts haunting vast areas of culturable lands, and at the same time provide water for irrigating millions of acres in the coastal areas and upland and for generating large quantities of hydro-electric power for use in industry, and also make available hundreds of miles of irrigation-cum-navigation waterways for inland transport, and large areas for fish culture, recreation and tourism. These bounties of nature, the variety of picturesque landscapes and the long seacoast have attracted people from different parts of the country so that through the centuries a fine blend of human material and culture has developed. The ancient maritime achievements and the artistic stone edifices of great archaeological value stand out as symbols of the glorious past heritage. The Census Operations during the pn.st two decades have reveJ.led many interesting statistical details. The Census Report of 1961 embodied in a number of Handbooks, each devoted to one of the 13 districts of the State, contains descriptive and statistical accounts intended to facilitate comp!"ehensive study of conditions obtaining in a district as well as in the smallest village unit within it. I am happy to note that the plan and the scope of the Handbooks have been so designed as to make them useful books of reference. The narrative account of each district covering geography, political history, population, education. economic activities, industries, agriculture and many other subjects, present a graphic picture of the di3trict. This, along with the latest Census tables, giving the social, economic, cultural and demographic data of the district, give an extensive array of statistical record. A notable feature is the detaild statistics given in the Village Directory in the Handbook for each district, containing various items of information relating to each one of the 46,466 inhabited villages. They fu.rnish very valuable information, which would provide indispensable material required by research scholars, anthropologists, social workers and people engaged in rural and regional planning. Another feature of the-District Handbooks is that they have been further enriched by inclusion of m:l.ps of thi} districts as well as m'J.ps of all the police stations in the district, giving location, boundary and survey and alignment of each village within a police station. Combination of the m?ps with the informative data will indeed be very useful and is commended as a utility publication of ~ hig.lt order. I congratulate the Superintendent, Census Operations, Orissa, Shri M. Ahmed, I.A.S., and his colleagues, staff and others who have helped him in producing the Census Reports in the form of Handbooks through remarkable perseverance and zeal. These Census Reports will rank as outstanding works of public utility. A. N. KHOSLA Governor of Orissa PREFACE AMONG the many gifts of the Census of India, one is the scht1me ~ofprepara­ tlon and publication of the District Census Handbook which was first introduced in 1951. The Registrar General, India, recommended to State Governments that the publication of the District Census Handbooks containing the Census data of 1951 for each district of the State be undertaken by them. In response, a number of States in India undertook the' printing of the Handbooks relating to their respective districts at their own cost. In Orissa, however, the printing was not undertaken for reasons possibly of financial nature, but the Census Organi­ zation completed its task of preparing manuscript volumes of all the 13 districts of the State. Apprehending that the vast amount of labour and energy 'spent in ~he preparation of the complete set of Handbooks for the State would go to waste if printing was riot undertaken, the Superintendent of Census Operations took resort to the alternative of cyclostyling about 100 copies of the Handbook of each district, a measure which ultimately turned out to be no less burdensome than printing, in -view of the great bulk of the volumes. These sets 'Yere distrj­ buted to the State Government, the Central Government and to important institutions and organizations. But it was found shortly afterwards that the demand from various sources was too large to be satisfied with the available number of cyclostyled sets. It was a mistake indeed not to have printed the books. At the commencement of the Census of 1961, the Registrar General, India, recommended to all the Chief Secretaries of State Governments in India in his letter No. 27/1/60-R.G., dated the 21"st November 1960 that the State Government take into consideration the great importance of the series of detailed statistics available up to the level of village for purpose of rural and regional planning, and agree to print at their own cost the District C~nsus Handbooks of all the districts. The matter was given full consideration and ultimately the Revenue Department in their memo .•,:\No. VC-19/61-13593-R, dated the 13th March 1962 requested the Superintendent of Census Operations, Oris~a, to arrange for preparation of the Handbooks and to send the manuscripts to the Orissa Govern­ ment Press for printing in due course. The compilation of the present Handbook was undertaken by the Census Organization under the circumstances. VI The Handbook as now presented is more elaborate than its counterpart in 1951. The main items of its contents were laid down _in the scheme of the Registrar General with a view to ensure as far as possible uniformity of subject matters to be embodied in the Handbooks of all the States in India. According to the scheme~ the Handbook is divided into 3 parts. Part I contains a 'Chapter, namely, 'Introducing the District', which is a descriptive account of the district 'relating to various aspects which a reader might feel inclined to look for before he enters into the vast array of statistics that follow. Subjects such as, history, physical features, natural calamities, communication, public health, calendar of events and .a multitude of others have been dealt with in a brief: but comprehensive scale, celevant for a publication of this nature. Part II of the Handbook contains a series of statistical Tables relating to 1961 Census in thier great variety and details. Part III contains many official statistics 0 btained from various Departments of Government. Names of the Departments furnishing the information are mentioned at the bottom of the text. A considerable portion of this Handbook could not have been compiled but for the co-operation and assistance of the State Government and the respective Departments. The' Departments concerned extended their unfailing co-operation in furnishing whatever notes or information was required from time -to time. I wish to record my appreciation and thanks for all the -co-operation thus received from the Departments of the State Government, parti­ cularly from the State Gazetteer section and the statistical units of the Director­ a.tes of Health, Public Jnstruction, Agriculture and Food Production"-as well as from the offices of the Chief Conservator of Forests, the Registrar of Co-operative Societies~ the Director of Community Development and the Regional Director of National Savings, Orissa. I am grateful to the Ministry of Defence, Govern­ ment of India, for having permitted the publication of the maps contained in this volume, and to the Registrar General, India, for' giving an outline of the scheme according to which the Handbook has been prepared and for giving general guidance from time to time. I am glad to place on record my unstinted appreciation of the zeal and perse­ verance with which the officers of this organj.zation contributed to the preparation of the Handbook. Many of the facts arid figures embodied herein had to be built up with a great amouJlt of diligence from raw materials, some of which were recovered by contact with the lower administrative units and some picked up and Vll screened from a mass of reports and annual returns lying unchecked with the topmost departmental authorities. This was entrusted to Shri Shiva Kinkar Das, Tabulation Officer, who completed the task with admirable resourcefulness. The compilation ofthe Tables in Part II entailed strenuous work on the Central Tabulation Branch of my office, hea~ed byShri V. RajeshwarRao, DeputySuperin­ tendent, who took pains for their systematic collation and pr~sentation. Shri Binoy Charan Mohanti, another Tabulation Officer of the organization, was useful in examining economic, industrial and some simil;;tr ~spects of the district. The text of the political history of the district has been contributed by Dr. N. K. Sahu, M. A., Ph. D., a reputed scholar on the history of Orissa.