Singrauli district

Singrauli district (सिंगरौली जिला) is one of the districts in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

History
Singrauli district came in to existence on 24 May 2008, with its headquarters at Waidhan. It was formed by separating three tehsils of the erstwhile Sidhi district: Singrauli, Deosar and Chitrangi.

Geography
Singrauli district covers an area of 5672 km2.

Divisions
Singrauli district comprises three tehsils, namely, Singrauli, Deosar and Chitrangi.

There are Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha constituencies in this district, namely, Chitrangi, Singrauli and Devsar. All of these are part of Sidhi Lok Sabha constituency

Demographics
As per the 2001 census Singrauli district had a population of 920,169, out of which 478,633 were males and 443,536 were females.

Economy
The Rihand Dam was built in 1961 across the Rihand River at Pipri in the neighbouring district of Sonbhadra, in Uttar Pradesh. Later, rich coal deposits spread over an area of 2200 km² across the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh were discovered close to the artificial lake, Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar formed by the Rihand Dam. That lead to the transformation and development of the area.

Coal mining and power
The Northern Coalfields Limited is the major business of this area; headquarters of NCL is at Singrauli. NCL is a subsidiary company of Coal India Limited. which is the largest coal producing company in the world and has it its HQ at Aasansol, West Bengal.

The area of Singrauli Coalfields is about 2202 km2. The coalfield can be divided into two basins, viz. Moher sub-basin (312 km2.) and Singrauli Main basin (1890 km2.). The major part of the Moher sub-basin lies in the Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh and a small part lies in the Sonebhadra district of Uttar Pradesh. Singrauli main basin lies in the western part of the coalfield and is largely unexplored. The present coal mining activities and future blocks are concentrated in Moher sub-basin. Ligenite is the form of coal, excavated in these coal mines. These coal mines are hub for the HEMM (Heavy Earth Moving Machines).

The exploration carried out by GSI/NCDC/CMPDI has proved abundant resource of power grade coal in the area. This in conjunction with easy water resource from Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar makes this region an ideal location for high capacity pithead power plants. The coal supplies from NCL has made it possible to produce about 10515 MW of electricity from pithead power plants of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd (UPRVUNL) and Renupower division of M/s. Hindalco Industries. The region is now called the "power capital of India". The ultimate capacity of power generation of these power plants is 13295 MW and NCL is fully prepared to meet the increased demand of coal for the purpose. In addition, NCL supplies coal to power plants of Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd, Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) and Hariyana State Electricity Board.

NCL produces coal through mechanised opencast mines but its commitments towards environmental protection is total. It is one of very few companies engaged in mining activities, which has got ISO –14001 Certification for its environmental systems.

NCL, through its community development programmes, has significantly contributed towards improvement and development of the area. It is helping local tribal, non-tribal and project-affected persons in overall improvement of quality of their life through self-employments schemes, imparting education and providing health care.

Culture
The famous temples of Singrauli are Hanuman Mandir, 12 kilometres from the city and Jwala Mukhi, also there is Gayatri temple & Shiv Mandir, situated at Vindhyanagar, 15 km from Singrauli. The best known festivals in this area are Durga pooja and during Deepawli in Hanuman mandir a grand mela is organised. Nuri mosque at Waidhan is the biggest mosque around city.