Amethi - WikiHQ

Amethi is a city situated in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Gauriganj is the administrative headquarters of the Amethi district. This district is a part of Ayodhya division in the Awadh region of the state. Amethi was 72nd district of Uttar Pradesh which came into existence on 1 July 2010 by merging three tehsils of the erstwhile Sultanpur district namely Amethi, Gauriganj and Musafirkhana and two tehsils of the erstwhile Raebareli district, namely, Salon and Tiloi. The town is part of the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency and Amethi Assembly constituency, which became reputed as a stronghold of the Indian National Congress party. The Congress leaders belonging to Nehru-Gandhi family won several elections from Amethi during 1980–2014. In 2019, Smriti Irani of Bhartiya Janta Party won this seat. Irani was defeated in 2024 by Kishori Lal Sharma of Indian National Congress.

History

In the past, Amethi used to be called Raipur-Amethi. When the train station was built here, it took the name of Amethi, but before then there had been no settlement with that exact name. There had been a mahal or pargana of Amethi since at least the time of Akbar: it is mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari as belonging to the sarkar of Lucknow, with a brick fort at headquarters and was held by Rajputs called "Bahmangoti"s, who are the same as the Bandhalgoti Rajputs from whom the Rajas of Amethi originated. He was the younger son of Raja Bikram Sah of Amethi estate. His descendant, Babu Bhoop Singh, became one of the most important leaders in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and played a crucial role in the Awadh War of 1857.

thumb|[[Babu Bhoop Singh of Kohra (estate), Leader in the Indian Rebellion of 1857]]

The Rajas of Amethi

The Bandhalgoti Kachhwaha Rajas of Amethi originally resided at Raipur Phulwari, which along with Sarwanpur and Katra Himmat Singh, was one of the three villages that would later be amalgamated into the modern town of Raipur-Amethi. The old fort at Raipur Phulwari was destroyed by Safdar Jang c. 1743; its ruins are still visible today. The town's sex ratio is 965 females to every 1000 males; 7,049 of Amethi's residents are male (50.9%) and 6,800 are female (49.1%).

Transport

Amethi is connected to major cities in Uttar Pradesh and North-Eastern India via Indian Railways and roads. Amethi railway station has direct trains connecting with major cities like Jammu, Amritsar, Ambala, Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Dehradun, Haridwar, Jaipur, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Patna, Kolkata, Puri, Bhopal, Mumbai and Bangalore.

A number of Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation buses play from Amethi.

Ayodhya International Airport () and Prayagraj Airport ( are the nearby airports from Amethi.

Institutions, industries and organisations

Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology
Rajiv Gandhi National Aviation University
Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi
Footwear Design and Development Institute
Ranveer Ranjanay Post Graduate College
Shri Shiv Pratap Inter College
Mahatma Shiv Kumar Inter College

A few public sector units were established in Amethi in the 1970s, however not much has occurred in the town for the past two decades, leading to young people leaving in search of jobs.

Society for Animal Health Agriculture Science and Humanity is a national non-profit organisation located in Munshiganj, Amethi.

Amethi has the Avionics Division of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the organisation responsible for the manufacture of Aircraft for the Indian Airforce. One Ordnance Factory was established in 2009 by the Congress Government to manufacture small arms and weapons.

A joint venture between India and Russia through Kalashnikov Concern and the Ordnance Factory Board has established a rifle factory in Amethi, and in 2023 Indian Army started using rifles made at this facility.

Villages

Amethi CD block has the following 86 villages: