Kotra tehsil
Kotra is a tehsil of Udaipur district in Rajasthan, India, consisting of 262 revenue villages and 31 panchayats. The tehsil is bordered to the north by Pali and Sirohi districts, to the east by Gogunda and Jhadol tehsils, and to the south by Gujarat state. The tehsil headquarter is located in the village of Kotra, southwest of the Udaipur at a distance of 57 km and 120 km by road.
History
In the erstwhile Mewar State, present-day Kotra tehsil was part of the Kotra Bhumat, an area comprising 242 villages. Bhumat was characterized by a system of land tenure under which petty chieftains held tenure known as bhum. The Kotra Bhumat was administered by the chieftains of Jura, Oghna, and Panarva, who paid a small tribute to the Mewar Durbar and were liable to be called on for local service. The Kotra Bhumat could be distinguished from other parts of Mewar by the fact that "the Bhils were never conquered: even the jagirdars of Bhil ancestry."During the British Raj, Kotra was directly under the political supervision of the second in command of the Mewar Bhil Corps and a cantonment was situated in the village of Kotra. The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer describes Kotra as a cantonment where a detachment is quartered. Kotra was the site of the oldest medical institutions in the Mewar State, when regimental hospitals of the Mewar Bhil Corps were opened in 1818.
In 1949, Udaipur State merged into Greater Rajasthan, and Udaipur district was formed with 18 tehsils, of which Kotra was one. The Kotra panchayat samiti started functioning in 1959. Between the census of 2001 and 2011, approximately 60 villages in the northeastern portion of the tehsil were reassigned to Gogunda and Jhadol tehsils.
Whereas revenue settlement begun in some parts of Udaipur district in 1879, but it was not until 1955 that Kotra tehsil was settled, when 304 villages were settled.
Geography
The area of Kotra tehsil is 1,110.93 square kilometres. The annual average rainfall in Kotra tehsil is 800.7 mm, with an average of 35 rainy days per year.Ground elevations in the tehsil range from 187 m to 1,017 m. Elevations in the northern and eastern parts of the tehsil are generally higher, sloping down in a southwesterly direction towards the Sabarmati River and its tributaries.
Major rivers in Kotra are Sei, Sabarmati, Pamri, Wakal, Divav and Kosambi. The general direction of the rivers is north to south. The Sei Dam is located on the Sei River in northern Kotra tehsil near the village of Teja ka Bas. This is a 28 m high dam which is used to impound water not for use downstream of the dam, but for inter-basin transfer to Jawai dam in neighbouring Pali district.
The Phulwari ki Nal Wildlife Sanctuary is partially situated in Kotra tehsil.