Jharsuguda district

Jharsuguda is a district in Odisha, India with Jharsuguda town as its headquarters. The district once had an airport during World War II. This region is rich in coal and other mineral reserves. Of late, many small and medium scale iron and steel units have been set up in the vicinity of Jharsuguda town, giving impetus to the industrial growth of the district.GeographyJharsuguda district has three urban agglomerations, municipalities of Jharsuguda town and Brajrajnagar and municipality of Belpahar.EconomyThere are lot of Coal mines situated in this area.Brajrajnagar is an industrial town, being of the prime location for Open Cast Coal Mine of Ib Valley Coalfield of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited. Brajrajnagar also boasts of a large scale paper mill, i.e., Orient Paper Mills of the Birla Group of Industries. However, this mill has been defunct for more than a decade now. Brajrajnagar is also a tourist hub as there are a lot of big temples like Brajeswari temple near railway station, Ramchandi Mandir, Laxmi Narayan Mandir, Jagannath Temple, Shiv Mandir in Lamtibahal, Shani Mandir in college road, Mukteswar Temple in hill top colony, Shiv Mandir in Rampur as well as Shiv Temple of G.M. Office, Aditya Mandir in jharsuguda road, Mangala and Tarini Mandir in college road.In 2006 the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Jharsuguda one of the country's 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640). It is one of the 19 districts in Odisha currently receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF).