Dewas - My Home town And an Industrial City
in Madhya Pradesh, Central India
Dewas District in Ujjain Revenue
Division, is situated on the Malwa plateau in the West-central part of
Madhya Pradesh. Maximum height of this
region is 2296 ft. towards north of Dewas town. This height makes the
climate a bit pleasant, even during the peak summer season. No matter how
much hot is the day, nights in summer are always cool. the average rainfall
is 32-35 inches in year. The temperature ranges from a min of 4-5 degrees
Celsius to a high of 42-43 degrees during summers. Sometimes the maximum
touches 45 degrees mark and the minimum goes below 3 degrees also. Overall a
temperate region in terms of climate.
Dewas is a municipal corporation town
with a population of 2,45,000 (2001 census). The district is quite large in
terms of area and most of the part is covered by dense and thick teak and
Sal forests. The city does not boost a very good infrastructure. Due to its
proximity to Indore, the largest city
of central India, Dewas has got a good
connectivity with other major cities of India including all four metros. A
national Highway, NH-3 passes through the middle of the city. Dewas has got
few educational institutes which are good up to only secondary level. For
higher education, person has to migrate to Indore or other big cities as
there are no higher level colleges in the town to cater specialized
qualifications. There are mainly two degree level colleges in the town. All
the colleges are affiliates to Vikran university ,
UJJAIN.
Dewas is an Industrial town of the state. It has got many mid-sized and
small industries under its belt. The big wigs include
Tatas,
kirloskers, Arvind mills,
S Kumars,
Tata - Cummins, Gajra gears,
Ranbaxy Labs, Steel Tubes,
Bank Note press (which prints majority
of Indian currency notes. Very few people know about this outside dewas).
The rapid industrialization took place in the late 70s and early 80s. But
due to inadequate infrastructure, the pace is very slow since late 80s.
Still there are big units churning out profits.
Dewas is known as Soya capital of
India. Dewas has got major share in
the soyabean processing in India.
Dewas is an historical town, which in known in
the history for having 2 princely states simultaneously, Dewas Junior and
Dewas Senior. The city still has got many old gates and buildings. It was
the seat of Marathas (pawar dynasty) till its merger with Indian Republic.
Any description of dewas is incomplete without including TEKRI - a conical
hill standing in the middle of the town at a towering height of 350 feets
above the ground level. There are many temples of Mataji and other deities
at the top. A religious mela comes up every year during the navratri
festival. Its an excellent place from where one can get excellent view of
Dewas and neighbouring areas superb views of sunrise and sunset. During
monsoons, the clouds flock the TEKRI and it gives the feeling of any hill
station. There is one recreational place, a reservoir known as MEETHA talab
on the north-east end of the town. Its a small talaab, but its a pleasent
place as it gives few good views. It has got a bunch of Date trees on its
western edge and the TEKRI in its backdrop makes it picture perfect.
Because of its high location above sea level and at one corner of plateau,
constant wind flows in the region making it perfectly suited for harvesting
wind energy. MP wind farms have chosen an ideal location for planting more
than 100 huge monster like wind mills on a hill some 13 km from
DEWAS. It generated around 15
megawatts of power. Few private companies have financed these to get un
interrupted power supply.
I have spent around 11 years in the town before moving out for further
education and to seek advancement at professional front. My parents moved to
Dewas in 1987. We stayed at the
Bank Note press colony initially then
moved to our own house in the town area in 1994. I studied in Kendriya
Vidyalaya, popularly known as Central School, run by Government of India.
The school is in the Bank note press township and is a quite big institution
with all modern facilities. I love this town because of its peaceful nature.
The town is far away from metro culture and very nice place to relax. The
life is quite slow. The aroma is typical Malwi. Its a great place to have
variety of food. Especially Malwa region specialities, pohe-jalebi, rabri,
daal-baati, daal-baafle, rumaali roti. The imagination of having garam garam
jalebies in the cold winter nights thrills me.
