Maghval, also known as Megwal and Meghwad, is a village in the Kaparada taluka of

Valsad district Valsad district (previously Bulsar district) is one of the 34 Districts of Gujarat, districts in the West India, Western Indian state of Gujarat. It is bound by Navsari district to the north, Nashik district of Maharashtra state to the east, and ...

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

State,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It is a small enclave belonging to Gujarat, but located within

Nagar Haveli Nagar Haveli () is one of the two talukas of Dadra and Nagar Haveli District, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, India. It is surrounded by the Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Silvassa, the administrative headquarters of Da ...

, just south of

Silvassa Silvassa is a city and the headquarters of the Dadra and Nagar Haveli district in Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu in western India. It is today the largest city in the union territory. The city was chosen as one of t ...

in the

union territory Among the states and union territories of India, a Union Territory (UT) is a region that is directly governed by the Government of India, central government of India, as opposed to the states, which have their own State governments of India, s ...

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is a union territory in India. The territory was constituted through the merger of the former territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Plans for the proposed merger were announced by th ...

. In January 2022, the government of India announced plans for the Maghval enclave to become part of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu alongside 3 other villages (which were sometimes isolated from the rest of Gujarat, but not from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, by monsoon floods). This would allow the sale of alcohol in the villages, as alcohol is restricted in Gujarat. This process was later deferred.

Geography

Maghval, though under the administrative purview of Gujarat, is surrounded by the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (DNHDD), outside the state boundary and a few kilometres from Silvassa in DNHDD. The village with 2,160 villagers (as of February 2018) has a rich landscape with the

Daman Ganga River The Daman Ganga, also called the Dawan River, is a river in western India. The river's headwaters are on the western slope of the Western Ghats range, and it flows west into the Arabian Sea. The river flows through Maharashtra and Gujarat states, ...

cutting through it, leaving a hilly stretch on one side and plains on the other.

History

Formerly "Bombay Enclave", Maghval was a British counter-enclave within the Portuguese enclave within

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

until independence.

References

Villages in Valsad district {{Valsad-geo-stub