Note on Kolar Parliamentary Constituency

 Kolar district is located in the southern region of the Karnataka State and happens to be the eastern-most district of the Karnataka State. The constituency is surrounded by the districts of Bangalore Rural and Tumkur on the west; on the north, by Chikballapur District; on the east by Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh; and on the south by Krishnagiri and Vellore of Tamil Nadu. The Constituency comes under the Eastern Dry Zone (Zone-5) of the Agro climatic Zones of the state, with a total geographical area of 5.25 lakh ha (5540 Sq.Kms) which has hills, ridges and mounds, rolling lands, pediments, undulating and gently sloping lands and valleys. Formerly, Kolar was known variously as Kolahala, Kuvalala and Kolala. Kolar was called Kolahalapura during the middle ages, but later came to be known as Kolar. It was the battlefield for the warring kingdoms of Chalukyas in the north and Cholas to the south. It was the capital of the Gangas until 4th century AD when they shifted the capital to Talakad in Mysore. In 1004 AD, the Cholas annexed Kolar until 1116 AD. Vishnuvardhana (1108-1142 AD) freed Gangavadi from the Cholas, and in commemoration of his victory, built the celebrated Vijayanarayana Temple (Chennakesava Temple) at Belur. As a district headquarters, Kolar has room for many communities and represents a mini-India. The primary languages spoken here are Kannada and Telugu. Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) is a town in Kolar district which was once the primary gold mines in the country. Now it has been declared as a new KGF taluk. The constituency is predominantly dependent on agriculture, with total cultivatable area of 2.53 Lakh ha which is under dry land farming system. Since there is no perennial source of irrigation, the cropping mainly confined to Kharif season with Ragi, Ground Nut, Red Gram, field bean and Horse Gram as major crops. In addition to agriculture, Horticulture also assumes an important role in farming system covering upto 64% of cultivable land, with major horticulture crops mango, Sapota, Guava and Vegetable crops. Sericulture is one of important subsidiary occupations of the district with mulberry area of 15447.00 ha. A dairy production activity is yet another major subsidiary occupation of the farmers with 3.15 lakhs of mulching animal population. Hence, the Kolar is known as “The Land of Silk, Milk and Mangoes”

Facts: 

The constituency, with an area of 5540 Sq. km, has its greatest length of about 135 km from north to south with almost the same distance from east to west. The general plateau surface is interrupted by a number of hills and peaks of varying heights, particularly in the north. The rivers of the district are small and seasonal. Palar, and Dakshina Pinakini are the important rivers which originated in the elevated regions in the district. Now of course we have only river basin and no water flows in rivers

Physical Features: 

It occupies the table land of Mysore, bordering the Eastern Ghats and large part of the district comprising of the taluks Kolar, Malur, Bangarpet, Mulbagal & Srinivaspur. The general plateau surface is interrupted by a number of hills and peaks of varying heights, particularly in the north. The rivers are small and seasonal. Palar and Dakshina Pinakini are the important rivers which originate in the elevated regions.  

Demography:

The Kolar Parliamentary constituency comprises 8 Taluks which are also the Legislative Assembly Segments, with a geographical area of 5,540 Sq.Kms, holding population of 20.48 Lakhs as per 2011 census (Male-10.36 & Female-10.12 Lakhs), with sex ratio of 975 of females for 1000 males. The parliamentary constituency has 37 hoblis with 219 Gram Panchayats covering total 2488 villages; with the total electors for the entire constituency is about 17.27 Lakhs (Male-8.54 & Female-8.73 Lakhs)

Socio Economic cultural peculiarities: 

The major sources of employment are agriculture, dairy and sericulture, hence it was popularly known as the land of “Silk, Milk and Gold”. Farmers in Kolar are totally dependent upon borewell water for irrigation and drinking. The gold mines in Kolar Gold Fields are closed in 2003 due to reducing deposits and increasing costs. The district’s primary language is Kannada; Urdu, Tamil and Telugu are spoken by large minorities. Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) has an Anglo-Indian population. Festivals include the 13-day summer Karaga, celebrated in Kolar District, Kolar being one of the oldest Karaga traditions.

Tourism:

 The Constituency is also known for Temples. Historical Temples such as Kolaramma& Someshwara Temples in Kolar, Kurudamale in Mulbagal, Chikkatirupathi in Malur, Kotilingeshwara Temple in Bangarpet attract huge pilgrims throughout the year

Education:

The literacy rate in the constituency is 72.61%. The constituency has 1640 Lower Primary, 1252 Primary and 512 High Schools, with strength of 2.97 lakh students; 159 PU colleges with strength of 42,736 students; 10 Degree Colleges with strength of 11,008 students,  14 Polytechnic Colleges with strength of 1345 students. The constituency also comprises one Medical, 1 Dental and 2 Engineering Colleges.  

Railways:

The 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) wide narrow-gauge line between Bangarapet and Kolar was opened in 1913 by Mysore State Railway. The narrow-gauge Yeshvantapur–Devanhalli–Chikballapur line was opened in 1915 and was linked to Bangalore via Sidlaghatta, Chintamani, Srinivasapura under Yelahanka–Bangarapet narrow-gauge line in 1918. Gauge conversion of the Bangarpet–Kolar line was completed and opened for traffic in 1997. Gauge conversion of Yelahanka Chickballapur was completed and opened for traffic in 2004. Then, gauge conversion of Chickballapur–Kolar was completed and opened for traffic in November 2013, thus connecting the entire network into a YelankhaBangarpet broad-gauge line. 

Roads:

The district has a total of 1515 km of roads with 2 national highways and 5 state highways traversing the entire district (Table 4). The total share of highways in the district is 28% of the total road length distributed across both national and state highways. The two national highways account for 88 km and the state highways account for 322 km of total highways.  National highway 75 starts at Ramasandra and ends at Gaddur covering a stretch of 60 km and has about 41 villages along the distance. The other national highway 234 starts at Alambagiri and ends at Thimmaravuthanahalli covering a distance of 28 kms with 43 village’s enroute. The 5 state highways cover approximately 322 kms and have a total of 186 villages spread out on both sides

Health infrastructure:

Industries and Manufacturing Units: 

Kolar is also becoming Industrial hub with already five Industrial areas namely Vemgal, Narasapura, Jakkasandra, Tamaka and Malur. Nearly 49 large scale Industries are established with an investment of Rs.5024.42 Crores involving 21638 employees. To name a few- Scania, Honda,Mahindra Aerospace, Mitsubishi Electrical Company, GSK etc are already functioning. As a result, there is a steep increase in migrant workers in Kolar taluk.

• 5 mega industries viz., M/s Honda Motor Cycles & Scooters Pvt Ltd., M/s BEML, M/s Wistron Infocomm, M/s TATA Advance Systems Ltd with an employment of 22,213 with an investment of 4086.98 Crores.
• 36 Large Industries like SCANNIA, EXEDY, LUMAX, Mahindra Aerospace, Bando, Mitusubishi Elevators & etc., which provides 13,771 employments with an investment of 2853.09 Crores.
• 58 Medium Industries which provides 7986 employments with an investment of 820.80 Crores.
• 18,313 Micro and Small Industries which provides 1.26 Lakh employments with an investment of 1098.78 Crores.