Udgir, is second largest city and

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

in Latur district of the

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n state of

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

. It is located in the

Marathwada Marathwada () is a proposed state and geographical region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It was formed during the Nizam's rule and was part of the then Hyderabad State. The region coincides with the Aurangabad division of Maharashtra. ...

division of the state (one of the divisions of Maharashtra based on geographical conditions). The city is located very close to the borders of

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

and

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian subcontinent, Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India b ...

states. Udgir is home to the historical

Udgir Fort Udgir Fort in the Udgir city in Latur district, Maharashtra of India is a fort built in pre-Bahamani age, dating from the twelfth century CE. It is famous for the historic Battle of Udgir of 1760, in which the Marathas, led by Sadashivrao Bhau, ...

. The town and nearby villages rely mainly on

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, which serves as a major source of income for the population.

Demographics

Udgir is a

Taluka A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluka, or taluk) is a local unit of administrative division in some countries of South Asia. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administr ...

located in the Latur

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

of Maharashtra. It is one of the 10 Talukas of Latur District. There are 98

villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

and 2 towns in Udgir Taluka. As per the population

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

of 2011, Udgir Taluka has 56,806 households, and a population of 311,066 of which 161,568 are males and 149,498 are females. The population of children between the ages of 0-6 is 41,456 which is 13.33% of the total population. The sex-ratio of Udgir Taluka is around 925 compared to 929 which is around the average of Maharashtra. The

literacy rate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...

of Udgir Taluka is 68.71% out of which 74.37% males and 62.6% females are literate. The total area of Udgir is 736.26 km² with a population density of 422 per km². Out of its total population, 64.06% of the population lives in an

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...

and 35.94% lives in a

rural area In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...

. Marathi is the official language.

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

food grains A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legume ...

which is the result of high grain crop production in nearby villages.

History

Udgir is famous for the historic war between the

Marathas The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a M ...

and the Nizam, led by

Sadashivrao Bhau Sadashivrao Bhau Peshwa (3 August 1730 – 14 January 1761) was son of Chimaji Appa (younger brother of Bajirao I) and Rakhmabai (Pethe family) and the nephew of Baji Rao I. He was a finance minister during the reign of Maratha emperor Chhatra ...

, who defeated Nizam in 1759 when the treaty of Udgir was signed. Marathas won a convincing victory in the

Battle of Udgir The Battle of Udgir occurred on 3 January 1760 in Udgir between Maratha Empire and the Nizam of Hyderabad. The Marathas under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau defeated the army of Salabat Jung (brother of Nizam Ali Khan, Asaf Jah II); wherein S ...

under the leadership of Sadashivrao Bhau. Later it prompted Peshwe (Peshwas) of

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

to elevate and designate him as Chief Commander of the Maratha army for the Third Battle of Panipat fought in 1761. Nevertheless, it was part of the Nizam's state until 1948 and the

State of Hyderabad Hyderabad State () was a princely state located in the south-central Deccan region of India with its capital at the city of Hyderabad. It is now divided into the present-day state of Telangana, the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka, and t ...

between 1948 and 1956 before being annexed to

Bombay State Bombay State was a large Indian state created at the time of India's Independence, with other regions being added to it in the succeeding years. Bombay Presidency (roughly equating to the present-day Indian state of Maharashtra, excluding Sou ...

. Before the formation of Latur district, Udgir was part of

Osmanabad Osmanabad (; pronounced as ''Usmānābād''),is a city and a municipal council in Osmanabad district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Osmanabad derives its name from the last ruler of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan. Osmanabad city is the adm ...

district. There are some old and popular places of worship located in the town and nearby which includes Shri Udalik Baba Temple, Shri Bodhan Aai Temple, Shri Somnathpur Temple, Shri Hawagi Swami Temple and Hazrath Khaja Sadharudeen Basha Dargha Sherif, which is about 400 years old. The town gets its name from the Saint Udalik or Udalik Baba who took Samadhi in the city's fort.

Transport

Rail

Udgir's railway station is connected by trains available from and to Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Latur, Nanded, Osmanabad, Kakinada and Tirupati. Udgir comes under the

South Central Railways The South Central Railway (abbreviated SCR) is one of the 19 zones of Indian Railways. The jurisdiction of the zone is spread over the states of Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh. It has three divisions under its administrati ...

zone of the

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tot ...

; it is part of the Secunderabad Division.

Road

Udgir is well-connected by roads with all major villages and cities in Maharashtra and nearby states. Maharashtra's bus services, commonly known as ST or

Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation abbreviated as (MSRTC, or simply ST), is the state run bus service of Maharashtra, India which serves routes to towns and cities within Maharashtra as well as to its adjoining states. It has a flee ...

, operate day and night buses in and out of the town, providing easy, overnight and safe connectivity. Interstate government transport buses are also available from and to

Bidar Bidar (/ biːd̪ər/) is a city in the north-eastern part of Karnataka state in India. It is the headquarters of Bidar district, which borders Maharashtra and Telangana. It is a rapidly urbanising city in the wider ''Bidar Metropolitan area ...

and

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

. Private buses also run daily from and to major places like

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Aurangabad Aurangabad ( is a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Aurangabad district and is the largest city in the Marathwada region. Located on a hilly upland terrain in the Deccan Traps, Aurangabad is th ...

. --}

NH 50 National Highway 50 (NH 50) is a primary national highway in India. It traverses the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. The total length of the highway is . Route NH 50 * Nanded * Loha * Kandhar * Jamb bk Jalkot * Udgir * Bidar * Humnab ...

Passes Through Udgir City & Connecting To NH 65 For

1) NH 63 Under Construction Start From Barshi, Latur, Renapur, Udgir, Degloor, To Nizamabad

Air

The nearest domestic airport is Shri Guru Gobind Sing Ji Airport,Nanded,

which is at 100 km And The nearest international airport, which is at 225 km from Udgir, is

Rajiv Gandhi International Airport Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) is an international airport that serves Hyderabad, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. It is located in Shamshabad, about south of Hyderabad and it was opened on 23 March 2008 to replace B ...

State, India.

Agriculture

The main occupation of the people of Udgir is agriculture. Udgir has farmers that make up the rural setting in most of the surrounding areas. The soil as a part of the Deccan plateau is black basalt soil, rich in hummus. The main crops cultivated here are whole grains, including jawar, bajra, and wheat. Crops like

sorghum ''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...

, mung,

toor dal Toor may refer to: * toor (Unix) a secondary root account * Pigeon pea, or toor dal * A branch of the Tomar/Tanwar Dynasty People with the surname * Cecil J. Toor (1895–1969), American football coach * Devinder Toor (born 1967/1968), Canadian ...

, urad gram,

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...

s, and other green leafy vegetables are also cultivated. A dairy was established in the early 1980s. It emerged as a major employment resource for rural Udgirkars. Due to gradually-lowered production, the dairy is at a standstill. It came under the state government-run project called Aarey which was institutionalized during the

Operation Flood Operation Flood, launched on 13 January 1970, was the world's largest dairy development program and a landmark project of India's National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). It transformed India from a milk-deficient nation into the world's larges ...

days. Agriculture-based businesses like pulses (dal) industry, warehouses, cold storage, sugarcane factories also run here. Udgir has around 80 dal (mills) processing units.

Government Milk Scheme

Udgir has a skimmed milk powder plant established in 1978 and has capacity processing 1

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...

litre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...

s of dairy milk per day. Its conversion capacity is 10 M.T. S.M.P. per day.

Places of interest

Udgir Fort

is a fort built in pre-Bahamani age, which dates from the twelfth century CE. It is also famous for its historic battle in which Marathas, led by Sadashivrao Bhau, defeated the Nizam, and after which the treaty of Udgir was signed. The fort is bounded by a 40-foot-deep trench, as the fort is built at ground level. In the fort are several palaces, Durbar halls and the grave of Udaygiri Maharaj which is 60 feet below ground level. It is rumoured that the Udgir fort has a direct subway deep underground connecting with Bhalki and the Bidar forts.

References

External links

Udgir TalukaLatur District
{{Latur district Cities and towns in Latur district Hyderabad State Talukas in Maharashtra Cities in Maharashtra Villages in Udgir taluka