Information about Roorkee

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Roorkee Uttarakhand • India

Roorkee

Coordinates:

Area • Elevation| | •  m ( ft)

District(s)| | Haridwar

Coordinates:

Roorkee (Hindi: रुड़की) 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.

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], authored by Abul Fazal]. In the early days, Roorkee was a mere mud built village on the banks of hill torrent, named Solani.

Later, during English times, the things moved very fast with the construction of Upper Ganga Canal and the inception of Thomason College of Civil Engg (Later upgraded to University of Roorkee and now IIT Roorkee), Workshop, Temples, transformation to city, schools and colleges.

Geography

It is about 172km 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 Hazrat Sabir Paq.Roorkee is situated in the foothills of Himalayas.

Roorkee is close to the cities of Delhi, Dehra Dun, Chandigarh, Meerut, Saharanpur and Rishikesh . The National Highways Nos. NH-58 (Delhi-Haridwar-Mana Pass) and NH-73 (Panchkula/Chandigarh - Yamuna Nagar - Roorkee) passes through the city.

Roorkee comes under Northern Railway of Indian Railways and is connected to many important Indian cities, like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Agra, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Dehra Dun, Jammu, Bhopal, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Puri, Raipur etc.

The nearby airports are located in Dehra Dun (Nearest one), Pant Nagar and New Delhi.

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( Thomson college of Civil Engineering (estd. 1847)). It is also a home to government research institutes, Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Irrigation Research Institute (IRI), Irrigation Design Organisation (IDO) and the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH, [1]).

It also has the biggest army base with headquarters for Bengal Engineering Group and Center (BEG & C; Also known as Bengal Sappers), established in 1803. 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 32 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 Colleges/ schools in Roorkee:

(A.) COLLEGES: 01. IIT Roorkee--(UNIVERSITY) 02. College of Engineering Roorkee--(COER) 03. Roorkee Institute of Technology--(RIT) 04. Bishambhar Sahai Law Institute 05. Roorkee College of Pharmecy 06. Roorkee Institute of Medical Sciences--(RIMS) 07. Institute of Management Studies--(IMS) 08. Roorkee School for the Deaf 09. BSM Law College 10. KLDAV Post Graduate College 11. BSM Post Graduate College 12. SDPC Girls Degree College 13. Methodist Girls Degree College 14. Roorkee Degree College 15. Seventh Day Adventist Degree College 16. District Institure of Education & Training 17. Babu Ram Degree College

(B.) SCHOOLS (Upto X/XII Standard) 01.St. Gabriel's Academy 02.St. Ann's Sr. Sec. School 03.Army School, Roorkee Cantt 04.Knox Memorial School 05.Kendriya Vidyalaya (Central School)-1, Roorkee Cantt 06.ABN (Adarsh Bal Niketen), IIT Roorkee 07.CSA- Flora Dale Public School ,Mohd.Pur , Delhi Road 08.St. Johns Senior Secondary School -1 {ICSE BOARD} 09.St. John's Sr. Sec. School -2 {CBSE BOARD} 10.Kendriya Vidyalaya (Central School) -2, Roorkee Cantt 13.Montfort School 14.Greenways Modern School 15.Saraswati Vidya Mandir Sr. Sec. School,Delhi Road 16.Roorkee Public School, Haridwar Road 17.KLDAV Intermediate College 18.SDPC Girls Intermediate College 19.Moolraj Girls Intermediate College, Ram Nagar ,ROORKEE 20.Government Boys Intermediate College 21.Government Girls Intermediate College 22.BSM Intermediate College,Dehradun Road 23.Methodist Girls Intermediate College 24.Sri Gandhi Mahila Shilpa Mahavidyalya Intermediate College 25.Marwari Intermediate College, Roorkee Cantt 26.Sarvagya Public School , Paniyala Road , Roorkee 27.Sofia Girls School , Mohalla Sot , Roorkee 28.St. Marks Academy , DELHI Road ,Opp.Hotel Godawari

Besides, a number of schools are located in Roorkee. 14.

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 87%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 92%, and female literacy is 76%.. In Roorkee, 11% of the population is under 6 years of age. Languages spoken are Hindi, Urdu, English and Punjabi.

References

External links