Thoothukudi
In this article, I am going to write about one of the cities of Tamilnadu, India, namely Thoothukudi which is in other words, known as the Pearl City. You can get information about Thoothukudi city here, because I have included my personnel experiences with the city in this article to explain about this city.
The location of this city is at the almost southern end of Tamilnadu, and of course, southern verge of the country India.
To say in brief, Thoothukudi is a Port city with a grand Port Trust which connects the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. This city is the capital of the Thoothukudi district. To say in exact, the port trust of Thoothukudi is at about 600 Kilometers from the Chennai Port Trust and about 200 kilometers from Trivandrum Port Trust.
Thoothukudi city is very much familiar for the sea dependent businesses like, Fishing and Transportation due to the presence of Port trust and Sea shore.
The sea shore of Thoothukudi city is not with very big waves and with small peeping and looking cute waves.
History of Thoothukudi City:
· As we have seen above, Thoothukudi is one of the largest Port Trust cities of Tamilnadu. In the history of Thoothukudi, there are 2 personalities to talk about who are namely Vaanchinathan and Kappalottiya Thamilan, V. O. Chidambaranaar. The great Tamil poet who involved in the Freedom struggle namely Bharadhiyaar is also from Thoothukudi district.
· From the ancient days, Thoothukudi city is famous for pearl harvesting due to its low depth sea shore. But, nowadays, that pearl harvesting in Tuticorin city has got reduced to very small level. But the shipbuilding profession has been running in this city even now. The sea shore areas of Thoothukudi like, Lions town and Magirow coast threading mill area have still with the ship building spots.
· The history of the Thoothukudi port trust says that, in the beginning it was under the Pandyan Dynasty after the Korkai which was nearby Palayakayal. The same town is still existing nearby the Thoothukudi city on the way to Tiruchendur. This port trust was captured by the Portuguese in the year 1548 and then the same port trust was taken over by Dutch at the year of 1658. For the last time, before the independence of India , Tuticorin port trust was captured by the British government at the year of 1825. At the year 1866, under the British government ruling, Thoothukudi area was announced and had been maintained as Municipality by keeping Roche Victoria as the chairman of the municipality. By the name of this municipality chairman, there is a Park is existing in the Thoothukudi city, called, Roche Park. This park was one of the playgrounds for the Thoothukudi boys to play cricket after tharuvai ground. But, recently the park has been done many alterations and maintained well and good with some essential facilities like, Gym, palm walking path and children’s park etc.,
|
Meaning and reason of the name, Thoothukudi:
In the native language of Thoothukudi, Tamil, Thoothukudi means, Dig slightly and drink water. The reason for calling the city so is, the city does not have any river across but, the wells with drinkable water can be digged with less deep holes on the ground.
Another meaning of the same word, Thoothukudi is, Thoorthakudi. That is, the land reclaimed from the sea. This meaning came from the geography of the city as it is at the verge of the sea shore.
Economy of Thoothukudi:
The main business and professions in and around the Thoothukudi city are,
Shipping
Fishing
Salt plants around Thoothukudi
Industries
IT
Industries in Thoothukudi:
Thoothukudi has many industries, one of the important industries in Thoothukudi which is standing as a land mark for the city is TTPS ( Tuticorin Thermal Power Station). This power station could have been seen in many Tamil films related with Thoothukudi with 5 big sections.
This Power station has 5 units with 5 boilers and each of them have a furnace. The capacity of this Thermal Power Station is 210 Mega Watts. This Power Plant has been providing the electricity supply for most of the places in Tamilnadu.
Every year the most of the Engineering Students from total Tamilnadu colleges have been coming to this giant Power Station for their In Plant Trainings. There are many construction projects of Power Plants going on nearby the Thoothukudi Power Station.
Shipping business in Thoothukudi:
In the beginning, V. O. Chidambaram made the very first Sudhesi Ship with the help of Bala Gangadhara tilak. As Thoothukudi had the natural Port, it has got easy for the Thoothukudi merchants after the Independence of India including Cargo services. Vattakoil of Thoothukudi still has fishering boats fabrication works and the same has the fishing markets where the fresh fishes are sold soon after the boats hit the plat form from the sea. The fish auction in Thoothukudi can be seen at Vattakoil area in the early morning times, 5 o’clock.
The specialties of Thoothukudi port trust are, it is an artificial port. Thoothukudi port is the third international port in Tamilnadu state. Thoothukudi has been doing the all weather reports.
Fishering works in Thoothukudi:
Thoothukudi is famous for Marine fishing and Valamburi Chunk fishing. In fishing, we can find the level of the business and availability of fishes in the Thoothukudi Sea spots by seeing the fishes stacked in the fishing market of Thoothukudi. All kind of fishes from Prawn to kid shark can be seen in the market. The reason is, the coast line is very lengthy about 150 km. The Prawn culture was in Thoothukudi and gaining much Foreign exchange. But this culture was banned by the Supreme Court of India.
The dry fishes from Thoothukudi are very much famous and exported to the other countries. There is a Fisher men Training Institute existing in this city at the Beach road, just before the Roche Park. As this city has a bulk of fish oriented business, there are fish curing centres at the surrounded towns of thoothukudi, namely Palayakaayal and Punnakaayal. These fishing centres are verbally known as the Chemical by the people there.
Transporting services of Thoothukudi:
Now, we shall look into the transportation services connected with the Thoothukudi city’
Road transportation of Thoothukudi:
The major highways of Thoothukudi city are,
· Tuticorin – Madurai – Trichy – (NH 45-B) – This is the main route gets the transportation between Thoothukudi to Chennai.
· Tuticorin – Palayamkottai (NH 7-A)
· Tuticorin – Palayakayal – Tiruchendur (State Highway)
· Tuticorin – Ramanathapuram (State Highway). This highway was recently upgraded as part of the East Coast Road (ECR) Project which will soon connect Tuticorin with Chennai through coastal line.
· The expansion of ECR from Tuticorin to Kanyakumari at a cost of 190 crores is planned.
Railway transportation of Thoothukudi:
The main Tuticorin Railway station is one of the oldest Railway stations. There is another railway station is there namely Thoothukudi Melur Railway Station. Apart from this, there are some Railway gates namely 1st gate, 2nd gate, third gate and 4th gate of Thoothukudi. There is a big bridge in Thoothukudi has been built across the Second gate of Thoothukudi.
Tuticorin Airport
The Thoothukudi Airport has been located at the town Vaagaikulam which is at the outer area of the Thoothukudi city. For now, the domestic Transportation has been going on in the Thoothukudi Airport.
The list of Flights have been coming to the Thoothukudi Airport are,
Kingfisher & Spicejet are operating flights daily.
Spicejet Arrival 11:05, Departure 11:25
Kingfisher Airlines Arrival 15:50, Departure 16:05
Madurai Airport is the nearest international airport.
Thoothukudi Port
Even though the Port is an artificial one, the harbor of Thoothukudi is natural one and well deep harbor. One of the latest news from Thoothukudi circumstances is telling that, the Sea line transportation between Thoothukudi and Colombo is going to be started in some days.
Culture and communication things in Thoothukudi:
The language spoken in Thoothukudi city is Tamil with the admiring slang of Aeelai…. Vaalei..
Media and communication
· Thoothukudi city has All India Radio Station nearby the V.O.C Arts college campus, Carries AIR External Services for South Asia in English, Sinhala and Tamil (1053 kHz).
· FM Radio Stations in Tuticorin City include Suryan FM (93.5 MHz), Hello FM (106.4 MHz).
· Tuticorin City is the landing point for the first undersea cable of BSNL, Ltd. Connecting Tuticorin with Colombo. The optical fibre cable runs between Mt. Lavinia (Sri Lanka) and Tuticorin (325 km).
· Apart from these primary things, the local TV channels in Thoothukudi are well developed and number of them is quite high.
Education
Thoothukudi has lots of Schools and Colleges. Some of the famous schools in Thoothukudi are,
Holy Cross Convent
Star Matriculation School
Karapettai Nadar Higher Secondary School (Boys and Girls)
C.M School
V.G.S Higher Secondary School etc.,
Some of the colleges in Thoothukudi city are,
Kamaraj Arts & Science College
V.O.Chidambaranar College etc.,
The stadiums and exercising centers in Thoothukudi are, Tharuvai stadium which can be seen with full of boys playing Cricket, Football, Basketball and Tennis etc.,
The Gymkhana Club in Thoothukudi is with modern playing indoor games facilities and has been running successfully in the city.
Parks in Thoothukudi city:
· Roche Park is situated on the southern corner of the city on the way to harbour. This Roche park has been well developed nowadays with the gym facility and palm walking facility and has been the park for Families to get entertained.
· Harbour Beach park is situated near the harbor guest house. From this park, the view of Thoothukudi thermal Power Station gives nice experience. The Harbour beach has city bus facility from the old bus stand of Thoothukudi. The other buses going to TTPS can also be helpful to go and reach this beach.
· Nehruji Park is in the northern side of the city.
· Rajaji Park near Government Hospital which is full of trees. This park is at the hot of the city, opposite to the BSNL office. This park can be seen full of people always and with families during the weekends.
· Teppakulam park around the Sundara Vinayagar Temple tank in the heart of the city
Tuticorin has branch for all major banks in the country.
Following is the list of banks in Tuticorin
· Canara Bank
· Central Bank of India
· Tamilnad Mercantile Bank
· Federal Bank
· I O B
· Indian Bank
· Lakshmi Vilas Bank
· Pandian Grama Bank
· SBI
· UCO Bank
· Vijaya Bank
· ICICI
· HDFC
· Axis
Tuticorin has various industries including power, chemicals, fisheries. Following are some of them:
§ Tuticorin Thermal Power Station
§ Sterlite Industries (India) Limited owned by Vedanta Resources
§ SPIC fertilizer plant
§ TAC fertilizer plant
§ Darangadara Chemicals
§ Kilburn Chemicals
§ Madura Coats
§ Transworld Garnet Industries
§ VVD & Sons (P) Ltd (Manufacturers of ‘VVD Gold’ Coconut Oil)
§ Heavy water Plant, Dept. of Atomic Energy
§ Diamond Seafoods
§ Nila Seafoods
§ Ramesh Flowers
§ Loyal Textiles
No comments:
Post a Comment