#Blog5
#50yearsofstatehoodHimachalPradesh

Shaping up

So, Himachal Pradesh was born as a Chief Commissioner Province on April 15th,1948. Initially, only four districts Chamba, Sirmour, Mandi and Mahasu, were formulated. While Chamba and Sirmour princely state were merged into Himachal Pradesh without any remodeling.

Mandi and Suket were welded together to create the Mandi district. The fourth district, Mahasu, was formed after absorbing 26 princely states, Thakurais and their tributaries.
The fifth district, Bilaspur, blended with HP on July 1st 1954. It was before HP became the part ‘C’ state.
On May 1st 1960, the sixth district, Kinnaur, was sculpted out of Chinni Tehsil of Mahasu District. Fourteen other villages of Rampur tehsil were also affixed to it.
The districts of Kangra, Lahaul-Spiti, and some sections of Kullu and Shimla were formed in 1966. These were shifted to Himachal Pradesh under the Punjab Boundary Commission Report. It took the number of districts to nine.

Part ‘C’ state Himachal Pradesh

The incredible Himachal Pradesh has a total area of 27018sq km. But till 1954, it was a part ‘C’ state. It had only nine districts and 1068 sq km of total area.
According to ‘The state reorganization commission’, HP was diminutive to outlive as a state. Justice Fazil Ali commanded the commission. He gave a verdict for abolishing the part A, B and C states.
The part ‘C’ states were ordered to join a more significant neighboring state or convert into a union territory.
In the absence of which, they will be controlled independently as union territory for some time. Hence, the decision was taken, and Himachal Pradesh was proclaimed as a union territory.
Therefore, after Kinnaur was constituted in 1960, it was in 1963 that Himachal was provided with the ‘Territorial Council’ in 1972.
It was time to calculate and carve out a few more districts. Hence, the Kangra district was trifurcated to form Una and Hamirpur districts. Shimla and Solan were dissected out of the Mahasu district.
In 1972 Solan district was created by tagging areas of Solan and Nalagarh.

The dots of Himachal

Since September 1st 1972, there have been no alterations in the administrative structure of Himachal Pradesh.
Himachal, according to its formation, is still pigeonholed into old and new Himachal.

The old Himachal is constituted of -Chamba, Kinnaur, Bilaspur, Mandi, Sirmaur and Shimla. In contrast, the New Himachal is formed of Kangra, Kullu, Lahaul-Spiti, Hamirpur and Una.Solan incidentally is neither classified in old Himachal new in New Himachal.

Two of its tehsils Solan and Arki, fall in old Himachal, and three of its tehsils Kasauli, Kandaghat and Nalagarh, are from the new Himachal.
According to the 19191 census
Area old Himachal-48.4%
Area of new HImachal-51.6%
The population of Old Himachal-52.3%
The people of New HImachal-47.7%
to be continued……………………..