ROORKEE

'Roorkee' () is a town and a municipal board in Haridwar District in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is located on the banks of the Ganges canal with a population of about 140,000 inhabitants.

Contents

Etymology

Geography

Importance

Demographics

External links

Etymology

Roorkee is said to derive its name from Ruri, the wife of a Rajput chieftain. It was the capital of Pargana during the time of Akbar as is referred in Ain-e-Akbari. It was a mere mud village on the banks of hill torrent, named Solani.

Geography

It is about 180 km north of the Indian capital New Delhi and located between the rivers Ganga and Yamuna. Before the creation of Uttarakhand (formerly known as Uttaranchal) on November 9, 2000, Roorkee was a part of the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Roorkee is also Famous for a World Famous Shrine Situated in Kaliyar town on famous Sufi Saint Sarkar Sabir Pak.
Roorkee is situated in the foothills of Himalayas and close to the cities of Haridwar, Rishikesh, Deoband, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar and Dehradun

Importance

Roorkee has a history of being first in numerous things. The first engineering college in Asia, and in the British Empire outside Great Britain; India's first rail locomotive; India's first aqueduct!
Roorkee is best known for Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, formerly known as University of Roorkee. It is also a home to government research institutes, Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Irrigation Research Institute (IRI) and the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH, [1]).
It also has the biggest army base for Bengal Engineering Group and Center. One striking feature of this town is the presence of the upper Ganga canal Aqueduct crossing over the Solani river, which was built by the British and augmented recently.
It is 30 km from Holy City Haridwar. The famous saint Sant Shri Asaram ji bapu Ashram resides at Sherpur Gram, Hardwar road, Roorkee.
It is also the place where first locomotive engine in India moved on rails on December 22, 1846 -- locomotive engine named Mary lind which was especially shipped from England. It was used to carry soil which was used for the construction of aqueduct on Ganga canal. This aqueduct, later, was used to construct India's first Hydraulic Power House (Operational 1930 at Pathri). Remains of this power house are still there at Pathri, Bahadrabad, Roorkee; and the locomotive rail paths are still intact.
Roorkee is also a well known center of education. With the numerous schools, places for higher education and professional degrees, students come from various places from all over India and abroad.
Some of the schools in Roorkee:
# St. Gabriel's Academy
# St. Ann's Sr. Sec. School
# Army School Roorkee Cantt
# Knox Memorial School
# Kendriya Vidyalaya (Central School)
# A.B.N (Adarsh Bal Niketen)
# Flora Dale Public School
# Saint Johns Senior Secondary School
# St. John's
# Anand S A Sarawasti Vidya Mandir
# G.I.C Roorkee
# B.S.M. Inter College
# D.A.V. Inter College
# Montfort School
# SDA Inter College

Demographics

As of 2001 India census,^[1] Roorkee had a population of 97,064. Males constitute 53% of the population and females 47%. Roorkee has an average literacy rate of 76%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 81%, and female literacy is 72%. In Roorkee, 11% of the population is under 6 years of age.
Languages spoken are Hindi, English and Punjabi.

External links

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