Lakhimpur Kheri district
Lakhimpur Kheri district is the largest district in Uttar Pradesh, India, on the border with Nepal. Its administrative capital is the city of Lakhimpur.
Lakhimpur Kheri district is a part of Lucknow division, with a total area of. The national government designated Lakhimpur Kheri as a Minority Concentrated District on the basis of 2001 census data, which identifies it as requiring urgent aid to improve living standards and amenities.
Dudhwa National Park, and Pilibhit Tiger reserve are in Lakhimpur Kheri and are the only national park in Uttar Pradesh. They are home to many rare and endangered species including 65+ Tigers, leopards, swamp deer, hispid hares and Bengal florican.
Etymology
Lakhimpur was known as Luxmipur.Kheri is a town from Lakhimpur.
Theory suggests that the name derives from the khair trees that once covered large tracts in the area.
History
The early history of Lakhimpur Kheri district is obscure, but it has many ancient ruins, and several places are associated with episodes in the Mahabharata. According to tradition, this area was once under the rule of the Lunar race of Hastinapur. The village of Balmiar-Barkhar, near Muhamdi, is popularly identified as the capital of the ancient Virata Kingdom, although this is more commonly located in Rajasthan. Kundalpur, near Khairigarh, is said to be where Krishna carried off Rukmini, and Kheri itself is held to be where Kshemakarna performed the sacrifice to drive out the Nagas.One of the earliest known finds in the district is a stone horse of the 4th-century king Samudra Gupta, which formerly stood in a heavily forested area near Khairigarh and has since been moved to the Lucknow Museum. This king of Magadha performed Ashvamedha yajna in which a horse is left to freely roam in the entire nation, so as to display the power of king and to underline the importance of his conquest. As in much of Awadh, coins of the 9th-century king Bhoja Deva of Kannauj are commonly found in Lakhimpur Kheri district.
This area was supposedly once ruled by the Pasis, although no traces of this remain today. Most of the cultivated areas in the district have been historically ruled by Rajputs and Muslims instead. The earliest Rajput clan known in the area are the Bachhil, who are described as rulers in an inscription at Dewal dated to 992 CE. The Bachhils probably ruled over the northern and western parts of Lakhimpur Kheri district, and they had strongholds at Barkhar, near Muhamdi; Kamp, on the Sarda; Nigohi, in modern Shahjahanpur district; and Garh Gajana near Dewal. The Ahbans are the only other early Rajput known to have been here at an early date; they came to the region at the time of the first Muslim conquests and ruled from Pataunja in today's Sitapur district.
As for the Muslims, they appear to have arrived in this district at a later date than elsewhere. There are no local traditions of the Muslim folk hero Ghazi Sayyid Salar Masud here, in contrast to neighboring Bahraich district, and Muslim rule was only established very gradually and was never very strongly felt. Lakhimpur Kheri was then something of a backwater, very heavily forested and barely mentioned in contemporary sources. One tradition attributes the fort of Khairigarh to Muhammad bin Tughlaq, but it is more commonly said to have been built in 1379 under Firoz Shah Tughlaq instead. Khairigarh was one of several forts constructed along the northern frontier, on the north bank of the Sarju, in order to protect the lowlands against incursions from Doti and Nepal. However, these forts were supposedly abandoned shortly after completion and remained so for centuries.
Mughal era
At some point, the city of Khairabad became a seat of Muslim government, but exactly when is not clear. During the reign of Akbar, Khairabad formed a sarkar of Awadh Subah, and most of the present-day district belonged to this sarkar. 8 of its 22 mahals, or parganas, lay partly or entirely in the area covered by the present district. The first of these was Barwar-Anjana, a vast mahal that was mostly covered by forest. It included the later parganas of Muhamdi, Magdapur, Atwa Piparia, Pasgawan, and Aurangabad, as well as Ahmadnagar and Pindarwa in modern Hardoi district. Barwar-Anjana remained a single territorial unit until the time of Ibadullah Khan, who ruled as Raja of Muhamdi in the early 1700s. In the Ain-i-Akbari, this mahal is described as being ruled by Brahmins and Rajputs, mustering an infantry force of 1,000 and a cavalry force of 50, and providing a revenue of 4,325, 237 dams to the imperial treasury.Bordering Barwar-Anjana was the mahal of Bhurwara, which was also heavily forested and not extensively cultivated. It included the later parganas of Haidarabad, Bhur, and Kukra Mailani, although its boundaries were never clearly defined, and it was ruled by the Ahbans. The mahal of Khairigarh also had imprecise boundaries; besides the later pargana of the same name, it included the area that would later become the Nighasan and Palia parganas, as well as the northern half of Dhaurahra. The Ain-i-Akbari calls Khairigarh one of the most important forts in Hindustan, and the landowners in this mahal consisted of various Rajput clans: Bais, Bisen's, and Bachhils, as well as an unknown group called "Kahanah".
In the southern part of the present-day district was the mahal of Paila, which was smaller at that point than it would later become; it was ruled by the Ahbans. The mahal of Kheri included the later pargana of Srinagar along with most of Kheri pargana. Kheri itself had a fort made of burnt brick. The remaining part of Kheri pargana was then part of the small mahal of Basara, which consisted of the southwestern corner between the Sarayan and Jamwari rivers. Finally, the later pargana of Kasta formed part of the large mahal of Nimkhar, which was mostly based in present-day Sitapur district.
A small part of the current district was included in the sarkar of Bahraich at the time of Akbar. The mahal of Firozabad, ruled by the Tomar Rajputs, probably covered the southern part of the later Dhaurahra pargana in addition to Firozabad. It mustered a "surprisingly large" force of 8,000 infantry and 200 cavalry, and there was a brick fort at its headquarters.
From Akbar's time until the end of the 1700s, the history of Lakhimpur Kheri district is essentially the history of the various zamindari dynasties that ruled the area. The greatest of these was the Sayyids of Barwar, who had originally been granted a large estate in Hardoi district by Akbar. Muqtadi Khan, the great-grandson of the original grantee, was "entrusted with the management of Barwar" after the death of the former Bachhil ruler there. He then built a large fort at Barwar, and he greatly expanded his territory during the reign of Aurangzeb before dying in 1683.
Some of the Rajput States of the district estd. before Mughal era were Isanagar, Jhandi and Lakhahi. Oel and Singahi were established in Mughal era.
Under the Nawabs of Awadh, the old system of sarkars and mahals remained in use until the reign of Asaf-ud-Daula, who replaced them with chaklas. The entire area of Lakhimpur Kheri district was included in the chakla of Khairabad, which also included most of Hardoi and Sitapur districts, but at times Muhamdi formed a separate chakla, and some of the southeastern parganas were occasionally put under the chakla of Bahraich.
Modern era
In the year 1801, when Rohilkhand was ceded to the British, part of this district was included in the cession, but after the Anglo–Nepalese War of 1814–1816 it was restored to Oudh. On the annexation of Oudh in 1856 the west of the present area was formed into a district called Mohammadi and the east into Mallanpur, which also included part of Sitapur. In the Indian Rebellion of 1857 Mohammadi became one of the chief centres of Indian independence movement in northern Oudh. The refugees from Shahjahanpur reached Mohammadi on 2 June 1857, and two days later Mohammadi was abandoned, most of the British party were shot down on the way to Sitapur, and the survivors died or were murdered later in Lucknow. The British officials in Mallanpur, with a few who had fled from Sitapur, escaped to Nepal, where later on most of them died. Till October 1858, British officials did not make any other attempt to regain control of the district. By the end of 1858 British officials regained the control and the headquarters of the single district then formed were moved to Lakhlmpur shortly afterwards.Geography
The district lies within the Terai lowlands at the base of the Himalayas, with several rivers and lush green vegetation. Situated between 27.6° and 28.6° north latitude and 80.34° and 81.30° east longitudes, and about in area, it is roughly triangular in shape, the flattened apex pointing north. The district is located at about the height of 147 meters above sea level. Lakhimpur Kheri is bounded on the north by the river Mohan, separating it from Nepal; on the east by the Kauriala river, separating it from Bahraich; on the south by Sitapur and Hardoi; and on the west by Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur.Climate
The climate is hot throughout the year except the rainy seasons. During summer, the temperature can reach above and in winters it can drop to around. The nights are very cold during winter and fog is very common in this season. The annual average rainfall in Lakhimpur Kheri is, mostly in the monsoon months.Rivers
Several rivers flow across Lakhimpur. Some of these are Sharda, Ghagra, Koriyala, Ull, Sarayan, Chauka, Gomti, Kathana, Sarayu and Mohana.;Sharda Barrage
File:Sharda Dam.jpg|thumb|right|Sharda River near Sharda Barrage
The Lower Sharda Barrage is constructed on the Sharda River, about downstream of the Upper Sharda Barrage, and nearly from Lakhimpur city. This project is part of the Sharda Sahayak Pariyojana and primarily depends on water diverted from the Karnali at Girjapur through the Sharda Sahayak link canal of length for over eight months in the year during the lean season; but it indents on Sharda supplies during the monsoon between July and October when the Karnali carries a lot of silt.
The SSP aims at irrigating culturable command area of 16,770 km2 with 70 per cent irrigation intensity. The long feeder channel of SSP takes off from the right bank of Sharda Barrage with discharge of 650 m3/s. Supplies are then fed into the different branches of the Sharda canal system, namely, the Daryabad branch, the Barabanki branch, the Haidergarh branch, the Rae Bareli branch and the Purva branch.
SSP provides protective canal irrigation for cultivable area of 2 m ha to lakhs of farmers in 150 development blocks of 16 districts in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The project was commissioned in 1974, and completed in 2000 with an estimated cost of 1300 crore rupees.