Social,
Environmental & Economic Sustainability
Our analysis of the rank of the district
Backwardness : 10
Sex Ratio Rank : 509
(Rank one is least sex ratio - Cenus 2001)
HIV Category District : B
(HIV Sentinel Surveillance 2004 - 2006)
Disability : 359 (Census 2001)
Literacy Ratio : 580 (Census 2001)
Minority : Does not figure in MCD
Challenges of the district : Our research
with local communities
Koraput district is located in the south-eastern
region of Orissa. High child mortality rate, illiteracy are two
of the main challenges of the district.
Due to poverty and lack of various government facilities reaching
out to the people many of the tribals in the district are suffering.
Less income generation activities have lead to rise in unemployment
in the district.
Brief About Koraput District
ORIGIN
OF THE NAME OF THE DISTRICT
The district of Koraput derives its name from its headquarters
the present town of Koraput. In ancient times when the Nalas were
ruling over this tract, Pushkari near modern Umarkot was the capital
city. In the medieval period Nandapur developed as the capital
under the Silavamsi kings and sometimes
under theKoraput with her rolling mountains, undulating
meadows, roaring rapids, enchanting waterfalls and terraced valleys
leading up to verdant hills, feasts the eyes as few other districts
can. Koraput with her golden autumn and misty mornings
of the monsoon months, her painted spring, and
slumbering summer and her winter ranging from fierce
to mild provides varieties of living in different seasons
which is rare elsewhere. Here in spring nature and man vie
with each other to make living joyous. Koraput with her
people who have been living as they lived many thousand years
ago and yet accepting newcomers of the latest development of homo-sapiens,
with her tribes who enjoy the joys of life today as they ever
did before, living in their hamlets hidden in arbours in picturesque
valleys, provide education and entertainment for the Anthropologist
which few other regions provide elsewhere. Indeed Koraput is a
museum of old and new in nature and human endeavour. Human endeavour
surpasses itself by producing power from falling water,
by manufacturing intricate machines and consumer goods and
welcoming into the district and providing homes and occupation
for many thousands of persons displaced from their homes, who
till then had no hope of calling any place a home of their own.
Koraput has both plant life and wild life which would give years
of study to the Biologist and limitless adventure for the hunter.
“Had I been merely a lover of fine sceneries (of wild life and
of mankind) I would have felt little desire to seek elsewhere
its gratification”.kings of the Solar dynasty. Viravikrama
Deo of the Solar dynasty shifted his headquarters to Jeypore
about the middle of the 17th century and this town prospered as
the capital. Koraput was chosen by the British in 1870 for better
health prospects. The origin of the name of Koraput is obscure.
There are several theories, none of which is convincing
Accroding to Mr. R.C.S.Bell the name of
the town is ‘Kora-Putti’ or”the hamlet of the nux-vomica” and
it is derived presumably from a tree or trees that must at one
time have been prominent near the site. But today not a singly
tree of nux-vomica is to be found near about the town of Koraput
and so the assumption or Mr. Bell is open to question.
Accroding to second theory, Koraput is corrupted
form of ‘Karaka pentho’ Karaka literally mans ‘hail-stone’.
It is also believed that one ‘Khora Naiko’ laid
foundation of the village during the time of Nandapur kings. He
hailed probably from Ranpur and served under the Nandapur kings
in the Militia, and for his faithful and meritorious services
he has permitted to establish this village which was named after
him as Khora Putu, and later on the name has beenabbreviated to
‘Koraput’.
