Mohali district to soon publish gazetteer

THE DISTRICT administration will publish a gazetteer as a record of all historic sites, tourist spots, Mohali’s famous writers and other prominent personalities. The gazetteer will be a step towards building the district as a tourist hub, officials said. This is the first time a gazetteer is being prepared for the district. It will be nearly 500-page long, with all geographical and other details about the district.
The officials who are preparing it said that usually gazetteers are prepared for separate districts once in a decade but this will be Mohali’s first.

“Due to some issues, the gazetteer for Mohali was not prepared but now as the district is becoming a tourist spot after Burj Fateh came up in Chapparchiri and people are going to visit the Jayanti Majri and Siswan Dam. That is why we felt the need to prepare the gazetteer with fresh information,” Deputy Commissioner Gurpreet Kaur Sapra said.

Sapra said that the idea took shape as Mohali is a transit point for thousands of tourists going to Himachal Pradesh for their vacations. For such people, the gazetteer will contain detailed information about Mohali’s archaeological sites, the latest finds from these sites, and all facts about culture, history and customs in the district.

The DC said the main objective of preparing this document is to bring together information of ancient history of the district for the coming generations and to serve as a guiding light for them. “The state government is working on the theme to make the district a tourist spot. For that, we need to list all the places which are of interest to the tourists who would come from different places,” she said.
The DC said that she appealed to all the writers, journalists, former officers and the citizens to provide information about the district so that the same could be registered effectively in the district gazetteer. She said that sometimes for giving clarification on certain facts, gazetteer is also cited in the courts.

She said that the information could be provided at her office or anyone can send mail to her office at segpbgovt@gmail.com. She said, “District gazetteer is an important official document of revenue department, which is prepared by the gazetteer’s organisation of financial commissioners secretariats under the Central Government’s Revision of District Gazetteers Scheme.”

Mohali which was carved out from Ropar and made a district under the previous Amrinder Singh government in 2006 has seen drastic geographical changes since then. The SAD-BJP government had initiated the work to make the district a tourist hub. In this regard the district administration also started work in Kandi area which consisted the Mullanpur Garibdas belt located in the foothills of Shivalik ranges.

Having complete details of geographical location, outline along with detailed information about the social, orchestrated, political and administrative changes in the district, the gazetteer is also known as the district’s encyclopedia. This is a source of information for intellectuals, biologists, administrators and research students.