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Gwalior is a city in Madhya Pradesh, India, lying 122 kilometres (76
mi) south of Agra, and 423 kilometres (263 mi) north of Bhopal, the
state capital.Gwalior occupies a strategic location in the Gird
region of India, and the city and its fortress have served as the
center of several of historic northern Indian kingdoms. Gwalior is
the administrative headquarters of Gwalior district and Gwalior
division.
The
Gwalior Fort has changed hands many times, from the Tomaras in the
8th century it passed on to the Mughals, then the Marathas under the
Scindias (1754), followed briefly by Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, Tatiya
Tope and the British.
The
city has several important educational institutions including the
Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Indian
Institute of Travel and Tourism Management, Scindia School, Madhav
Institute of Technology and Science and Laxmibai National Institute
of Physical Education.
Transportation infrastructure:
Air:
Gwalior Airport (IATA Code:GWL), is also known as Rajmata Vijyaraje
Scindia Vimantal,about 8 km north-east of the city, is one of the
major airports in Madhya Pradesh. Gwalior is connected to
Delhi,Mumbai and Jabalpur regularly by Air India. Gwalior also has a
big airforce station. More Flights for major destinations like
Bangalore, Chennai,Kolkata and Jaipur are expected to start soon.
Railways:
The Gwalior Junction GWL is part of the North Central Railways.
Gwalior's main station is one of the major commercial railway
stations of the North Central Railway of Indian Railways, whose
zonal headquarters is in Allahabad. The station has won awards from
Indian Railways for clean infrastructure in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990,
and 1992. Express trains such as the Bhopal Express, Taj Express and
Bhopal Shatabdi stop at Gwalior.
Gwalior is, perhaps, one of the few places where both narrow gauge
and broad gauge railways tracks are still operational. The Gwalior
narrow gauge track is the narrowest in India and the narrow gauge
train have been declared as world heritage by the international
heritage council.
Gwalior is well connected by train services to all parts of the
country, including 4 metros. There are direct trains to Mumbai,
Delhi, Kolkata (Howrah), Chennai, Trivandrum, Indore, Jaipur,
Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jammu, Lucknow, Bhopal, Bangalore,
Amritsar, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad and other
major towns. Gwalior is the main station serving most of the
important and long distance trains. There are two other stations
within the city limits, named Gwalior Birla Nagar and Gwalior
Sithouli. These stations interconnect to other stations and also
serve the short distance trains connecting Gwalior to nearby towns
and villages.
There are other narrow gauge stations within the city, named Gwalior
Grasim Factory and Motijheel. Gwalior lies on the longest functional
broad gauge line in India between Delhi and Mumbai.
Roads:
Gwalior is fairly well connected to other parts of Madhya Pradesh
and India with national and state highways. The proposed
North-south-Corridor of the Golden-Quadrilateral Highway project
passes through the city.The Agra-Bombay national highway (NH3)
passes through Gwalior, connecting it to Shivpuri on one end and
Agra on the other. The city is connected to the Jhansi by the
National Highway 75, towards the south of the city. In the Northern,
the city is connected to the holy city of Mathura via National
Highway 3. There are bus services to and from all major and minor
cities near Gwalior, including Bhopal, Agra, Delhi, Jabalpur,
Jhansi, Bhind, Morena, Datia, Jaipur and Indore.
Local transport:
Gwalior's public transport system consists of tempos, horse-drawn
tongas (which run fixed routes much like a bus system) and auto
rickshaw taxis. Recently the municipal corporation has launched
Gwalior City Bus covering some routes in the city.
The tempos and auto-rickshaws are often cited as a cause of
pollution and road congestion, and the local government has plans to
replace the tempos with vans that shall run on Liquefied Petroleum
Gas. However, taken in itself, this solution ignores the congestion
and pollution caused by private cars, which is far more significant
especially considering that the impact of private cars is actually
caused for the benefit of a very small section of the city's
population. |