Chavara is a village in

Karunagappally Karunagappally is a municipality in the Kollam district of Kerala, India. It is 24 km north of Kollam and south of Alappuzha. Karunagappally taluk consists of Alappad, Ochira, Adinad, Karunagappally, Thazhava, Pavumba, Thodiyoor, Kallalibh ...

taluk,

Kollam district Kollam district (), (formerly Quilon district) is one of 14 List of districts in Kerala, districts of the state of Kerala, India. The district has a cross-section of Kerala's natural attributes; it is endowed with a long coastline, a major La ...

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

, India. It is a part of Kollam Lok Sabha constituency.

Location and tourism

Chavara is situated on the shores of the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

and the major freshwater lake in

, Ashtamudi, which flows through it. Chavara has many lakes and lagoons including Sasthamkota Lake. Popular tourist destinations are Kattil Mekkathil Devi Temple,

St Andrew's Church, Kovilthottam St Andrew's Church, Kovilthottam is a historic colonial-era Roman Catholic church that is located in the Panmana–Chavara panchayat, Karunagappalli taluk, Kollam district, Kerala, India. Masses are held in English and follow the Roman Rite lit ...

, Kottankulangara Devi Temple, Kovilthottam Lighthouse as well as the area around

Ashtamudi lake Ashtamudi Lake (''Ashtamudi Kayal, ml: "അഷ്ടമുടിക്കായൽ" ''), in the Kollam District of the Indian state of Kerala is a unique wetland ecosystem and a large palm-shaped (also described as octopus-shaped) water body. ...

Some important areas around Ashtamudi lake in Chavara are Kurishumoodu, the Old Portuguese cross, Karattal kadavu, TS canal, Idathuruthu and fisherman colony, Koyivila boat jetty, Arinallor Kadavu and Cherikadavu backwater.

Industries

The village has a high supply of

rare-earth elements The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set of ...

in its sand, mainly

titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

on its beaches. The major industries in the public sector at Chavara that deal with the mining and processing of rare-earth metals are Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited (KMML) and Indian Rare Earths Limited (IRE). For the processing of

, India's first Titanium Sponge Plant (TSP) was developed by KMML in association with DMRL under

DRDO The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is an agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India, charged with the military's research and development, headqu ...

and the project was funded by

VSSC The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) is a major space research centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), focusing on rocket and space vehicles for India's satellite programme. It is located in Thiruvananthapuram, in the India ...

under

ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), overseen by the Prime Minister o ...

. The plant was inaugurated in 2011 by the then Defense Minister of India,

AK Antony Arackaparambil Kurien Antony (born 28 December 1940) is an Indian lawyer, attorney and statesman who served as the Minister of Defence of India from 2006 to 2014, making him the longest serving Defence Minister in India. He previously served as ...

. Kerala Premo Pipes a govt company (under KWA) in Chavara has been lying closed for the past 18 years. The Premo pipe factory started production in 1961 and closed in 1997 following adverse market conditions. Though an MOU was signed between KWA and HLL in 2011 for starting PVC pipes, it is yet to be materialized.

Notable people

O. N. V. Kurup Ottaplakkal Neelakandan Velu Kurup (known as O. N. V. Kurup; 27 May 1931 – 13 February 2016) was a Malayalam poet and lyricist from Kerala, India, who won the Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award in India for the year 2007. He received ...

, Malayalam poet and lyricist *

V. Sambasivan Velayudhan Sambasivan (4 July 1929 – 23 April 1996) was a famous " Kadhaprasangam" artist of Kerala, India. He was born on 4 July 1929 in Chavara Thekkumbhagom in Kollam district, as the eldest son of Meloottu Velayudhan and Sarada. He had sev ...

, Kathaprasangam artist *

Baby John Baby John (25 October 1917 – 27 January 2008) was a senior leader of the Kerala Revolutionary Socialist Party (Baby John). Previously, he was General Secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party in India. He was known in the Kerala state ...

, politician *

Shibu Baby John Shibu Baby John (born 27 July 1963) is an Indian politician, businessman, film producer and former Minister for Labour of the State Government of Kerala, India. He is former General Secretary of the state's Revolutionary Socialist Party (Baby J ...

, politician * B. Ravi Pillai, businessman *

Kalaranjini Kalaranjini is an Indian actress who started her career in the early 1980s. Personal life Kalaranjini has two sisters, Kalpana (Malayalam actress), Kalpana and Urvashi (actress), Urvashi, both of whom are actors. Her two brothers, Kamal Roy ...

, actress *

Kalpana Kalpana may refer to: Film and television * ''Kalpana'' (1948 film), an Indian Hindi-language dance film * ''Kalpana'' (1960 film), a romantic Bollywood film * ''Kalpana'' (1970 film), an Indian Malayalam film * ''Kalpana'' (2012 film), an I ...

, actress *

Urvashi Urvashi (, ) is the most prominent apsara mentioned in the Hindu scriptures like the ''Vedas'', the epics ''Ramayana'' and ''Mahabharata'', as well as the ''Puranas''. She is regarded as the most beautiful of all the apsaras, and an expert danc ...

, actress *

Ambili Devi Ambili Devi is an actress from Kerala, India. She won the Kerala State Television Award for Best Actress in 2005. Acting career She started as a young Malayalam serial artist and got her break with the serial ''Samayam''. Later, she entere ...

, Malayalam film actress * Chavara Parukutty Amma, artiste of the

Kathakali ''Kathakali'' (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: Kathakaḷi ) is a traditional form of Indian Classical Dance, and one of the most complex forms of Theatre of India, Indian theatre. It is a play of verses. These vers ...

dance drama

Footnotes

References

{{Kollam district

Kottankulangara Festival The Kottankulangara Devi Temple is a Hindu temple to the goddess Durga Bhagavathy or Aadi Shakthi, the supreme mother of power, located in the village of Chavara, Kerala, India. Early history The plot of land where the temple is situated w ...

Villages in Kollam district