Ghaziabad
Ghaziabad is suitated in the middle of Ganga- Yamuna doab. In shape
it is roughly rectangular, its lenght is 72 Kms. and its breadth
is 37 Kms. On the north it is bouned by the district of Meerut,
on the south by that of Bulandshahar & Gautambudh Nagar and
on the south- west by the national capital Delhi State and on the
east by the district Jyotibaphule nagar.
Ganga, Yamuna and Hindon are the main rivers flowing through the
district and they are filled with water throughout the year. Other
than these there are some small rainfed rivers, prominent among
them is the Kali river. Apart from these rivers the Ganaga Canal
flows through the district and irrigation work is carried out through
different branches of Canal. The Ganga canal also caters the drinking
water needs of the people of ghaziabad as well as Delhi.
Excursion
Ajrara (Tahsil Hapur)
This village lies on the left bank of the Kali Nadi in Lat. 280
50' North and Long. 770 49' East, about 13 Kms north of Hapur and
7 Kms east of Kharkhauda which is both a Govt. Roadways Bus Station(on
the Meerut-Hapur route) and a Railway Station (on the Meerut-Khurja
line).
The place is said to have been the seat of Hindu monarchy begore
the advent of the Muslims. The name owes its origin to a Yogi named
Ajaipal who built a thakurdwara (temple) here and called it Ajaipara,
the present name Ajrarabeing its corrupt form. Khwaja Basant Khan,
who got the viilage in Jagir in the time of Muhammad Shah, built
a fort here which was razed to the ground by the Marathas in 1794
when Fateh Ali Khan rebelled.
Bahadurgarh
(Tahsil Garh)
The village of Bahadurgarh lies in Lat. 280 40' North and Long.
780 7' East, in the south-eastern corner of the district, 78 Kms
from Ghaziabad and 48 Kms from Hapur. From Wahabpur Thera, a village
on the Garhmukteshwar-Bulandshahr road, a kutcha road about 3 kms
long leads to this village.
The village was originally known as Garh Nana and was bestowed
bu Jahangir upon Nawab Bahadur Khan, a Pathan, who changed the name
to Bahadurgarh. About 6.5 kms north to this place(near Mustafabad)
there are the ruins of a village known as Raja Karan-ka-Khera which
is set to have been founded by Raja Karna (of Mahabharata fame).
The village was the original home of what has come to be known
as Khurja pottery-an industry that was intriduced here from Multan
about 250 years ago. It is also known locally for its handloom cloth.
The products of the government dairy located here find a ready market
in Delhi.
Dasna (Tahsil Ghaziabad)
This, the headquarters of the pargana, is suitated in Lat. 280 41'
North and Long. 770 32' East, to the east of the Hapur road at a
distance 10 kms from Ghziabad and 24 kms west of Hapur. The place
gives its name to a railway station on the Ghaziabad-Moradabad branch
line of the Northen Railway, the railway station actually lying
within the limits of the adjoining village of Masuri.
Dasna owes its origin to Salarsi, a Rajput raja of Mahmud Ghajnavi's
days. It is said that the raja had gone to bathe in the Ganga in
order to get rid of his leprosy and, liking the place, settled down
in it and also built a large fort there. While diging the foundation
of the fort, a man is stated to have been fatally bitten by a snake,
an incident which is said to have given the place its name, "DASNA",
meaning to bite (used onluy for the bite of a snake). The village
was ravaged by Ahmad Shah Abdali in 1760 when he pulled down the
fort.
Dhaulana (Tahsil Ghaziabad)
The village lies on theroad which takes off at Dasna and joins the
Meerut-Hapur-Bulandshahr road at Gulaothi and is 25 kms from tahsil
headquarters. It is connected in the north with the Pilkhuwa railway
station by a 8 kms kutcha raod. According to a local account, the
village was founded by a man named Dhaul Singh about 1500 years
ago and was named after him. It was sacked by the Sikhs in 1780
and again became the scene of action during the freedom struggle
of 1857 in which the local Rajputs took a leading part, 14 of them
being said to have been hanged. In 1957 the villagers raised a memorial
in honour of these martyrs.
In a village there is a temple of Sati Malindi Devi, near which
a fair is held. It is said that the villagers used to perform their
worship in the village of Nagla Kashi but after a fight between
the people of the two villages about a hundred years ago, those
of Dhaulana built a temple in their village, which is still in existence.
Faridnagar (Tahsil Modi Nagar)
faridnagar lies at a distance of 30 kms from the district headquarter
and about 2 kms from Bhojpur block(on the Begumabad-hapur road)
with which is connected by a metalled road. The palce was founded
in the times of Akbar by Nawab Farid-ud-din Khan (who received the
land in Jagir) and it was called Faridnagar after him.
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Hapur ( pargana and tahsil Hapur)
the headquarter of the tahsil, this is the largest tahsil of the
district and lies in Lat. 280 44' North and Long. 770 47' East,
34 kms east of Ghaziabad. Hapur is a railway junction where the
Delhi-Moradabad and the Meerut-Khurja lines of the Northern Railway
meet.
It is said that the place was founded about 983 A.D. by Haradatta,
the Dor chieftain of Bulandshahr and Meerut, and was named haripur
after him. Another derivation is from the word 'hapar' ,which signifies
an orchard. A system of grants for the disabled and retired personnels
of the army was introduced here by Perron(a French Military commander)
and was adopted by the British for many years under which wastelands
were cleared of jungles and were assigned to invalid pensioners.
Ibrahim Ali, the tahsildar of Hapur, defended the town against Amir
Khan Pindari and his 500 men in 1805. The forces of Walidad Khanof
Malagarh planned an attack on the town during the struggle for freedom
in 1857 but in was foiled by the Jats of Bhatona.
Hapur is a leading grain and jaggery market of the country and
is well known for its papar (savoury comestible something like a
large wafer). Brass utensils and handloom cloth manufactured here
enjoy a local reputation. A market is held on Mondays in which the
main commodities of sale are ghee nd earthern pots.
Formerly, there were in the town five gates known as the Delhi,
Meerut, Garhmukteshwar, Kothi and Sikandra, but no vestiges of their
existence are to be found apart from the localities of their names.
The Jama Masjid( built during the reign of Aurangzeb in 1670) is
the chief ornament of the town.
Jalalabad
( Tahsil Ghaziabad)
Jalalabad, which gives its name to the pargana, 15 kms from Ghaziabad.
Tradition traces its origin to the days of Akbar when, it is said,
it was founded by one Jalal-ud-din who named the village after himself.
The important crops of the place are wheat, gram and sugar-cane
and the main sources of irrigation are wells and the Jalalabad distributary
of the Ganga canal.
Loni ( pargana Loni, tahsil Ghaziabad)
Loni, the headquarter of the pargana, about 17 kms north-west of
Ghaziabad with which it is connected by a metalled road and about
10 kms from Shahdara(Delhi) to which it is linked by another metalled
road running to Saharanpur. It also gives its name to a railway
station on the Shahdara(Delhi)-Saharanpur Lght Railway line.
Considerable antiquity is assigned to the village by alocal tradition
which goes that the rakshasa Lavanasur(who was killed by Rama's
brother Shatrughna) ruled here, the place deriving its name from
the first part of his name 'Lanvan', which is Sankrit means salt.
Another tradition assosiates it with Lonnkaran, a raja(also known
as Subkaran) after whom it was named Loni and whose fortress, it
is said , existed here till 1789 when it was destroyed by Muhammad
Shah, its bricks being used in the construction of a tank and a
garden. According to a third account the name is derived from the
word ' lon' because of its centre of a salt tract. The surrounding
land once belonged to Prithviraja, the king of Delhi and the traces
of a fort built by him are still in existence here. In December,
1398, Timur captured it- killing, according to local account, a
lakh of its inhabitants and making the fortress the headquarters
of his army. Till the begining of the present century there were
two groves here, one of the Kharanji Bagh and other located at a
site known as Uldipur, both planted by Zinat Mahal(the wife of the
Emperor bahadur Shah) which were confiscated during the freedom
struggle of 1857 and were sold to Shaikh Ilahi Baksh of Meerut.
A third grove called Ranap, said to have been laidout about 500
years ago by the wife of an emperor of Delhi, was brought under
cultivation in the last quarter of the nineteenth century but came
to be inhabited some time later, the locality being known as Abadi
Bagh Ranap, the boundary wall of the grove still being in existence.
Other old buildings of the place include two mosques on a mound
and a Siva temple built about a hundred years ago.
Modinagar ( tahsil Modinagar)
Modinagar lies in Lat. 280 50' north and Long. 770 35' east, 25
kms north-east of Ghaziabad on the Delhi-Mussoorie National Highway
(NH-58) . Parallel to this road runs the Delhi-Saharan section of
the Northern Railway with a railway station here. A metalled road
,going to Hapur, passes through the town. It is of recent origin,
having been founded by Gujar Mal Modi who established a sugar factory
here in 1933, named the place after himself. Begumabad, which has
contributed about 571 acres of its area to the making of this town,
is a much older place and is said to have been founded by one Nawab
Zafar Ali and to have been named Begumabad by a lady of the royal
family of Delhi when it passed into here hands. Its importance has
declined considerably with the growth of Modinagar as an industrial
town. Sugar, vegetable oil, textiles(including rayon & silk),
soap,paints, varnishes, and lanterns glycerine, cotton yarn, torches,
carbon-di-oxide and flour are produced at Modinagar. A temple (built
in the early nineteenth century by Rani Bala Bai Sindhia) which
was formerly in the village of Begumabad, is now included in the
notified area of Modinagar.
Mohan Nagar (Tahsil Ghaziabad)
Mohan Nagar, a modern industrial township lies in Lat. 280 41' North
and Long. 770 24' East, on the G.T. road about 7 kms west of Ghaziabad,
and 16 kms east of Delhi, the Sahibabad railway station lying about
3 kms south-west of the place. It was founded in 1958 by N.N. Mohan
and is named after him. It has a yeast and malt extract plant, a
brewery and a distillery, a cold storage, an ice factory and a plant
for soft drink, all equipped with modern machinery mostly manufactured
at workshops in the township itself.
Murad Nagar ( Tahsil Modinagar)
A town in Lat. 280 47' North and Long. 770 33' east, Muradnagar
is suitated at a distance of about 14 kms from Ghaziabad. The place
gives its name to a railway station on the Delhi-Saharanpur section
of the Northern Railway, which lies nearly 3 kms south-east of the
town.
It was founded about four hundred year ago by Mirza Muhammad Murad
Mughal whose mausoleum still stands near the town. The place possesses
an ordinance factory ( of the Government of India).
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General Information & Accomdation info on Ghaziabad city of Uttar Pradesh - India
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