Roorkee

Early political and administrative history of Roorkee:

The first mention of Roorkee is found in British records. According to British records, in the 18th century, Roorkee used to be a village of kutcha houses and buildings built from the soil of the pond on the western bank of the Solani river. There was no permanent house or building here.

At that time, this village was administratively a part of the Landhaura princely state of Panwar (khubbar) Gurjars of the Saharanpur district, which was formerly the Jhabreda princely state. Taking advantage of the political instability created after the death of Gurjar king Ramdayal Singh Panwar of Landhaura in 1813, the British showed a large part of the princely state as Khanakhali in the land records and excluded many villages and parts including Roorkee from the princely state and merged them into British rule. Thus, in 1813, Roorkee completely came under British rule. H.R. Neville writes in 1908 that the upper Doab of Ganga-Yamuna and especially Saharanpur district was actually known as 'Gujarat' till the beginning of this century (20th century) because it was ruled by Gujjars^[4][5].

The British established a small military cantonment in 1803 AD in Roorkee village, 10 km west of Landhaura, with the objective of weakening the ever-increasing power of the Gujjars in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab and also to bring the Ruhelas of the Najibabad region under their control.

It was used in the first war of independence fought under the leadership of chaudhary Vijay Singh, the talukdar of the taluka of Gujarat-Saharanpur and the Gujjar fort Kunja Bahadurpur, who is popularly known as Raja Vijay Singh, from 1822 to 1824 AD, which is known as the 'Gujjar Revolution^[6]' of 1824, which had the widespread support of the local people as well as the princely states and landlords of Doab and Haryana. After its suppression, the British authorities gave this incident a place in the government documents and records as "Gujar Rebellion" of 1824 and this was done to suppress the fierce rebellions of Gujjars, Ranghars and farmers of Gujarat Saharanpur in the revolution of 1857.^[7]

Establishment of Roorkee Tehsil:

Around 1826, the headquarters of Jwalapur tehsil of Saharanpur district was shifted from Jwalapur to Roorkee and Jwalapur tehsil was abolished and Roorkee was made a tehsil along with pargana, the charge of which was handed over to an officer of the rank of Joint Magistrate and a treasury officer and tehsildar were appointed. Along with this, SDM residence, treasury, tehsildar residence were also constructed in Roorkee.

Digging work on the Upper Ganges Canal formally began in April 1842, under the aegis of Proby Cautley, a British officer. Local works were designed and overseen by the engineer Thomas Login.^[8] Soon, Roorkee developed into a town. The canal, which was formally opened on 8 April 1854, provided irrigation waters for more than 767,000 acres (310,000 ha) in 5,000 villages.^[9]

Col. P.T. Cautley, an officer in the British Army, was most instrumental in constructing the canal. According to Dept. of Hydrology the canal, which is still considered as a marvel of engineering, was built in 1853. However, water was released in the canal on 8 April 1854.

To look after the maintenance of the canal, the Canal Workshop and Iron Foundry were established in 1843 on the civil lines on the canal bank which is known as the Irrigation workshop nowadays. This was followed by the establishment of Civil Engineering School; classes started in 1845^[10] to train local youth to assist in the civil-engineering work of the Upper Ganges Canal.^[11] This was to become the first engineering college established in India.^[12] On 25 November 1847, the college was formally constituted through a proposal by the Sir James Thomason, Lt. Governor of North-Western Province (1843–53).^[10] After his death in 1853, the college was rechristened as Thomason College of Civil Engineering. The college later upgraded to University of Roorkee in 1949; on 21 September 2001, through an Act of parliament, it was made one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, IIT Roorkee.^[13] .

Roorkee is located at 29.87°N 77.88°E / 29.87; 77.88.^[14] It has an average elevation of 268 metres (879 ft).

Roorkee is 184.3 kilometres (114.5 mi) north of the Indian capital, New Delhi, between the rivers Ganges and Yamuna, close to the foothills of the Himalayas. It is 65 kilometres away from Dehradun (the capital of Uttarakhand), 30 km (19 mi) from Haridwar and 48 km (30 mi) away from Muzaffarnagar. Before the creation of Uttarakhand on 9 November 2000,^[15] Roorkee was a part of the state of Uttar Pradesh.

The city is located in the Roorkee plain which is composed of recent alluvium with a gentle slope. As per the census 2011, this region is spread over 129.88 km² (50.15 sq mi).^[16]

There are a total of106 villages in Roorkee community development block of Hardwar. The total population of Roorkee block is 301,268 with male population of 158,879 and female population of 142,389. There are 51,329 households in Roorkee block, Hardwar district.^[17]

Roorkee has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), typical of the northern Indo-Gangetic plain. There are three seasons. A sweltering, dry “hot” season begins in mid-March and extends until mid-June with steadily increasing humidity and discomfort. From mid-June until the end of September the southwest monsoon gives the “wet” season with a total of around 770 millimetres (30 in) of rainfall or about-four-fifths of the annual total. This monsoonal rain is accompanied by hot temperatures, very warm mornings, and extremely uncomfortable humidity. From early October the “cool” season begins as the monsoon retreats, featuring warm to very warm afternoons, cool mornings, and moderate humidity. Occasionally western disturbances between January and March will bring a little rainfall during this season, although the average total from October to March is only 145 millimetres or 5.7 inches.

The Roorkee Tehsil is the most populous among the three Tehsils in the Haridwar District with 45% of its population categorized as urban.^[16] According to the 2011 census Roorkee city has a population of 392,000,^{[citation needed]} within the area of 8.11 square kilometres.^[20] The average literacy rate of Roorkee is 89.48%.^{[citation needed]} The sex ratio of the town as-of 2011, is 863 for all age groups while between the age 0-6 it is 820.^[16]

For administrative purposes, the Roorkee city is part of the Haridwar district's Roorkee Tehsil.^[21] The city falls under the Roorkee Legislative Assembly constituency, which is one of the seventy electoral Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly constituencies of Uttarakhand state in India.^[22]

Roorkee is an industrial base of Haridwar district. It is partially industrialized. Its main industries are ship parts manufacture, surveying, drawing and mechanical instruments. It has a GDP of US$112 million.^[16]

Major languages spoken in Roorkee are Hindi 72%, Urdu 23%, Punjabi 3%, and English 2%.^[26]