Sri Nikunja Bihari Dhal, IAS                                                                E-mail :  dmangul@ori.nic.in
   Collector & District Magistrate,                                                           Phone  : 230567(O)
   Angul                                                                                                                     230234(R)
                                                                                                                                  230685 (Fax)

            This is the first district gazetteer of modern Angul district. The  district  encompasses 3 ex-princely States namely, Athamallik, Talcher and Pallahara  and Angul sub-division of old Angul district. After independence & merger of the States  , these areas formed four Sub Divisions of Dhenkanal District until the new Angul district came into existence with effect from 1st April 1993.  As none of the ex-States had gazetteer worth the name and there was dearth of record of ex-State period, considerable difficulty was experienced to search out and collect the base materials for compiling the present gazetteer. I hasten to confess that most of the articles are hastily collected and edited in a short time. This gazetteer was conceptualized on completion of ten years of existence of the new district.

          It is a reflection of the History , People , Culture , Land , Flora , Fauna , Economy and Infrastructure of the district. It contains 24 chapters . The lay out has been borrowed from the official gazetteer of erstwhile  Dhenkanal district published in the year 1972. Chapters on  History and People borrow heavily from this master piece.

          Unit heads of the Central PSUs located in the district , District Level Officers and others have provided the base materials.

The CD ROM version of the gazetteer is scheduled to be inaugurated  by the Hon'ble Chief Minister, Orissa on 5.1.2004. The HTML version will also be available on the district website http://angul.nic.in . The hardbound book version will be published shortly. 

At the outset I am grateful to Sri Naveen Pattanaik, Hon'ble Chief   Minister of Orissa who has written the Foreword to this gazetteer.

                    I wish to thank Sri D.Nath, Ex-P.D,DRDA, Angul, Sri Subrat Kumar Chatterjee, DIO, NIC, Angul, Sri S.B.K Pradhan, OIC Collectorate, Angul and DR. P.K.Baral for their effective role in planning and coordinating the work of preparation of this gazetteer & its CD ROM Versions. The editorial board scrutinized the draft of this gazetteer with care and made several helpful suggestions with a view to improve the standard and quality of the gazetteer. It is a good compendium and serve  a useful reference document for researchers, policy makers and students.

          It is possible that , in a work like this  there are  some inadequacies. There is always room for improvement in future editions. Readers are requested to bring any suggestion in this direction to the attention of the editors.

                                                                                                                  N.B. Dhal