Madhya Pradesh is located in the center of India. Due to its geographical position it got its nickname as “Heart of India”. Area wise it is the second largest state of India. On Indian map it lies between 21°2′ N to 26°87′ N Latitude and 74°02′ E to 82°48′ E Longitude. The length of Madhya Pradesh from east to west is 870 km and from North to South is 605 km.
Madhya Pradesh is among the few landlocked states of India. Landlocked states are those states which are surrounded by land from all the sides. Madhya Pradesh is surrounded by 5 states and they are:
Uttar Pradesh
Chhattisgarh
Rajasthan
Gujarat
Maharashtra
Formation of Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh during British rule
Previously Madhya Pradesh was divided into several small and big states and province. Madhya Pradesh has the following main province during British rule:
Central Province and Berar with its capital at Nagpur
Baghelkhand
Along with the above, few provinces of certain areas were also included and the name of those areas is:
Chhattisgarh
Maha Kaushal
Madhya Bharat
Vindhya Pradesh
Bhopal
Madhya Pradesh after Independence
After Independence reorganization of states took place and in this, four parts of states got formed which are mentioned below:
Part A: Central Province and Berar, area of Mahakaushal, Chhattisgarh and Baghelkhand was merged together to form Part A state. Its capital was Nagpur.
Part B: The Madhya Bharat state was defined as Part B and its capital was Gwalior for 6 months and for other 6 months its Indore.
Part C: Vidhya Prant was defined as Part C and its capital was Rewa.
Bhopal: Bhopal was created as a separate state.
Declaration of Madhya Pradesh as a new state
On 9th December 1953 a Reorganization Committee was formed, its Chairmen were:
Justice Fazal Ali Khan
Pandit Hriyadaynath
M. Panikker
On 1st November 1956 on the bases of language Madhya Pradesh State came into existence due to the recommendation of Justice Fazal Ali Khan committee. Madhya Pradesh was created by letting in all the previous four parts, but certain changes were made within those parts, and the changes were:
Part A: All those areas whose people speak Marathi were given to Bombay and rest of the areas was merged with Madhya Pradesh. Total eight districts were given to Bombay, by name they are mentioned below:
Buldhana
Akola
Amravati
Yeovatmal
Vardha
Nagpur
Bhandara
Chanda
Part B: Only Sunel Tappa area of Bhanpura Tehsil (District mandsaur) was given to Rajasthan from this part and rests all the area was as it is.
Part C: Vindhya Prant and Bhopal was completely merged with Madhya Pradesh along with its capital as Bhopal.
Along with the upper changes Sironj Tehsil of Kota district of Rajasthan was incorporated with Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh.
Journey of Madhya Pradesh to come into its present form.
After all the above changes, on 1st November 1956 Madhya Pradesh have 8 divisions and 43 districts in total, but the process of reorganization were continued. In 1972 two new districts came into existence and they were:
Rajnandgao
Bhopal
Previously Bhopal was a Tehsil of Sehore. After the addition of two new districts the total districts of Madhya Pradesh become 45.
In 1980 formation of new division i.e Chambal Division took place & from 1980 to 1981 Hoshangabad Division was also incorporated in the list.
On 25th May 1998 V. R. Dubey committee recommended formation of 10 new districts, but due to some regional dispute one more committee got set up which was Singh Deo committee and on its recommendation 6 more districts were formed. So in total 16 new districts got add up in the list and made the count as 61.
Sheopur (Separated from Morena)
Katni (Separated from Jabalpur)
Umaria (Separated from Shahdol)
Korea (Separated from Sarguja)
Jushpur (Separated from Sarguja)
Korba (Separated from Bilaspur)
Mahasmund (Separated from Bilaspur)
Dindori (Separated from Mandla)
janjgir Chapa (Separated from Bilaspur)
Dhamtari (Separated from Raipur)
Kanker (Separated from Raipur)
Dantewada (Separated from Bastar)
Harda (Separated from Hosangabad)
Barwani (Separated from Khargon)
Neemuch (Separated from Mandsaur)
Kavardha (Separated from Rajnandgao)
Separation of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh
In the year 2000 further reorganization of states took place and it separates Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh due to which 16 districts were given to Chhattisgarh State. On 1st November 2000 Madhya Pradesh got reformed and on this date it has 45 districts and 9 divisions.
On 15th August 2003 three new districts got confirmed and they were:
Ashok Nagar (It got separated from Guna)
Burhanpur (It got separated from Shahdol)
Anuppur (It got separated from Khandwa)
After this confirmation the number of districts raised to 48.
On 17th May 2008 Alirajpur came into existence as a new district after getting separated from Jhabua and on 24th May 2008 Singrauli got separate from Sidhi. After these two separations the total number of districts raised to 50.
At present Madhya Pradesh has total 50 districts and 10 divisions.