Wildlife Sanctuaries in Odisha - Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary

Odisha is paradise for wildlife lovers. Apart from the usual attractions of Chilika Lake for the migratory bird lovers and Similipal Tiger Reserve for tiger lovers, there are many more wildlife sanctuaries throughout the state that are still virgin and unexplored. In a series of few simple informative articles we will cover them one by one in this blog. The first one is Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary, which is situated in the district of Balasore.      The forests of the region cover the Nato hills and Sukhupata hills going as far as till the Similipal National Park. One of the major Orissa wildlife sanctuaries, this Sanctuary is home to rare species of animals and plants. The Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary spreads across an area of 272.75 square kms covered with thick wooded forests and home to wild animals like tiger, elephant, leopards, sambar, bison, gaur and giant squirrels. The forest also houses a variety of birds like hornbills, hill myna and peafowl. The perennial streams that water the forests are home to a variety of reptiles. The government of the state of Orissa maintains the wildlife sanctuary which preserves the rare and endangered species of animals and plants.

As one reaches the perfect clearing in the jungle, leopards can be seen licking themselves clean on extended branches of trees, while elephants and deers forage the ground. Jungle Fowl and monkeys are common sight there.     Even in the moonlight, one can catch sharp shadows of the pachyderms from a distance of 20 metres. It is a truly enjoyable sight to see the elephants shovelling the earth with their feet and trunks to get at the salt balls below.

Yet it boasts of a healthy population of elephants along with deer, bison, bear and leopard. And if the forest guard is to be believed, the herbivores are regular visitors at the saltlick.      Though the lack of tourists has worked well for the forest, it has also resulted in the lack of preparedness among department officials to receive them.  One can feel the wildlife of elephants, bison, sambar, giant squirrel, leopard, varieties of birds like hill myna, peacock, hornbills and varieties of reptiles here.This sanctuary is located in the district of Balasore and is blessed with a charming forest and a variety of wildlife such as tiger, leopard, elephant, gaur, sambar, giant collector, a numeral of bird species like hill myna, peafowl, hornbills and various reptiles.     A trek from Nilgiri amidst Kuldiha forests is worth enjoying. Two rest houses at Kuldiha and Jorachua and the perennial streams are treat for the visitors. Summer season is the best time to visit jungles to feel the wild nature of it. Summer season is the best time to visit jungles to feel the wild nature of it.

My Orissa - An Overview

Orissa has a history spanning a period of over 3,000 years. The history of Orissa is in many ways atypical from that of the northern plains, and many of the common generalizations that are made about Indian history do not seem to apply to the Oriya region. The word Oriya is an anglicised version of Odia, which itself is a modern name for the Odra or Udra tribes that inhabited the central belt (Angul, Deogarh, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Sonepur, Baudh, Balangir) of modern Orissa. Orissa has also been the home of the Kalinga and Utkal that played a particularly prominent role in the region's history, and one of the earliest references to the ancient Kalingas appears in the writings of Vedic chroniclers. In the 6th century BCE, Vedic Sutrakara Baudhayana mentions Kalinga as being beyond the Vedic fold, indicating that Brahminical influences had not yet touched the land. Unlike some other parts of India, tribal customs and traditions played a significant role in shaping political structures and cultural practices right up to the 15th century, when Brahminical influences triumphed over competing traditions and caste differentiation began to inhibit social mobility and erode what had survived of the ancient republican tradition.The capital of Orissa is Bhubaneswar. It is famed for its magnificent temples, numbering around a thousand. Cuttack,which is the former capital of Orissa is 29 km from Bhubaneswar. With the rapid expansion of two cities and better road connectivity, the two cities are now almost conjoined and considered as twin cities. The city of Puri is nearby, at a distance of around 60 kilometers on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Puri is a holy city and the site of the annual festival of the deity Jagannath. It is one of the four Dhams (holy places) of Hinduism. The world-famous "car festival" (rath yatra) is celebrated in Puri.

The Chota Nagpur plateau occupies the western and northern portions of the state, while along the coast are fertile alluvial plains and the valleys of the Mahanadi, Brahmani, and Baitarani rivers, which empty into the Bay of Bengal. These alluvial plains are home to intensive rice cultivation. A major nesting ground for the Olive Ridley sea turtles can be found in the Beaches of Orissa; in Devi, Gahirmatha and Rushikulya are known nesting sites for the L. olivacea Indian Ocean population. In 2007, around 130,000 turtles nested on the beaches of Gahirmatha.

Although much of Orissa's forest cover has been denuded lately, one of the greatest attractions of Orissa is its still vast expanses of unspoiled natural landscape that offer a protected yet natural habitat to the state’s incredible wildlife. There are many wildlife sanctuaries in Orissa. The Simlipal National Park Tiger Reserve is a huge expanse of lush green forest with waterfalls, inhabited by tigers, elephants, and other wildlife. The Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary has been protecting estuarine crocodiles since 1975.

Chilka Lake, a brackish water coastal lake on the Bay of Bengal, south of the mouth of the Mahanadi River, is the largest coastal lake in India. It is protected by the Chilka Lake Bird Sanctuary, which harbors over 150 migratory and resident species of birds.




The highest mountain peak in the state is Deomali (1672 m), which is situated in Koraput district in southern Orissa. It is also the tallest peak of the Eastern Ghats. It is part of the Chandragiri-Pottangi mountain system. Location: 18°40'3"N 82°58'59"E (Deomali on Wikimapia).
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Industrial growth

Orissa has abundant natural resources and a large coastline. It contains a fifth of India's coal, a quarter of its iron ore, a third of its bauxite reserves and most of the chromite. Rourkela Steel Plant[12] was the first integrated steel plant in the Public Sector in India. It receives unprecedented investments in steel, aluminium, power, refineries and ports. India's topmost IT consulting firms, including Satyam Computer Services, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), MindTree Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Infosys have large branches in Orissa. IBM, Syntel, Bosch and Wipro are setting up development centers in Orissa. So far, two of the S&P CNX 500 conglomerates have corporate offices in Orissa, for example, National Aluminium (2005 gross income Rs.51,162 million) and Tata Sponge Iron (2005 gross income Rs.2,044 million).


Recently the number of companies who have signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) to set up steel plants in the state has gone up to 50, including Posco of South Korea which has agreed to construct a mammoth $12 billion steel plant near Paradip port. It would be the largest single investment in India's history. Arcelor-Mittal has also announced plans to invest in another mega steel project amounting to $10 billion. Russian major Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Company (MMK) plans to set up a 10 MT steel plant in Orissa too. The state is attracting an unprecedented amount of investment in aluminum, coal-based power plants, petrochemicals, and information technology as well. In power generation, Reliance Industries (Anil Ambani Group) is putting up the world's largest[citation needed] power plant with an investment of US $13 billion at Hirma in Jharsuguda district. Vedanta Resources’ 1.4 million tonne alumina project in Kalahandi district is the largest investment in aluminium. Vedanta has also announced a $3.2 billion dollar huge private University project on the lines of the Ivy League Universities, which is unprecedented in the history of education in India.

The Central Government has agreed to accord SEZ (Special Economic Zone) status to eight sites in Orissa, among which are Infocity at Bhubaneswar and Paradip. But all these plans are facing massive resistance from the people of the state who mainly depend on agriculture for livelihood. Some vested interests are pushing ahead projects of Mittal, Tata, Vedanta, Birlas causing many human rights violations. Flood and cyclone are the major hurdle in Orissa's development as the important districts are situated nearer to the Bay of Bengal.
>Infrastructure development

Although Paradip is Orissa's only large port, the coastal towns of Dhamra and Gopalpur are being developed into major ports as well. The government of India has selected the coastal region of Orissa, stretching from Paradip in the north to Gopalpur in the south, to be developed as one of the five or six Special Economic Regions (SERs) of the country. The government of India and the state government of Orissa would work together to erect world class infrastructure in this region along the lines of the Rotterdam, Houston, and Pudong regions. This would stimulate further private investment in petrochemicals, steel, and manufacturing. A recent Morgan Stanley report forecasts that Orissa would be flooded with massive investments for manufacturing related activities in the same manner that Bangalore had attracted software investment in the 1990s. The scale of the investments in Orissa would, however be much higher. As of July 2006, the total planned investment in the state is a whopping $90 billion. This includes some investment in research, education, hospitals, roads, ports, airports, and hotels. There are many multi-state irrigation projects in development, including Godavari River Basin Irrigation Project.