Aralvaimozhi is a

panchayat town A nagar panchayat (town panchayat; ) or Notified Area Council (NAC) in India is a settlement in transition from rural to urban and therefore a form of an urban political unit comparable to a municipality. An urban centre with more than 12,000 ...

Kanniyakumari District Kanniyakumari district is one of the 38 districts in Tamil Nadu state and the southernmost district in mainland India. It stands second in terms of population density among the districts of Tamil Nadu. It is also the richest district in Tamil Na ...

in the state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

, India. It is a small

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

situated in southern

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The town was earlier called as ''Aramboly'' during colonial period.

History

Aralvaimozhi pass was a strategically important gap or

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human a ...

in the southernmost end of Western Ghats. It connected erstwhile

Travancore The Kingdom of Travancore ( /ˈtrævənkɔːr/), also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. At ...

with

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...

. Many of the invasions faced by the Chera and the successor kingdoms came via this ghat. The name "Aral" was derived from the

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

built and maintained by the rulers of

Venad Venad was a medieval kingdom lying between the Western Ghat mountains and the Arabian Sea on the south-western tip of India with its headquarters at the port city of Kollam/Quilon.Noburu Karashmia (ed.), A Concise History of South India: Is ...

and later by the kingdom of

to defend the kingdom from invasions from the east regions. It is also said that Aralvaimozhi means whispering wind. The whistling sound of wind in the region might have led to such a name. Aralvaimozhi Fort was one of the most important forts of

. It was constructed around 1740 by

Eustachius De Lannoy Eustachius Benedictus de Lannoy (also sometimes called 'Captain De Lannoy') (30 December 1715 – 1 June 1777, Udayagiri Fort) was a skilled military strategist and commander of the Travancore Army, under Maharaja Marthanda Varma. De Lannoy ...

along with Udayagiri Fort,

Vattakottai Fort Vattakottai Fort (or 'Circular Fort') is a seaside fort near Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu the southern tip of India. It was built in the 18th century as a coastal defence-fortification and barracks in the former Travancore kingdom. It was construc ...

and Travancore lines. The fort was captured by the English East India Company in 1809 from the soldiers loyal to

Velu Thampi Dalawa Velayudhan Chempakaraman Thampi of Thalakulam (1765–1809) was the Dalawa or Prime Minister of the Indian kingdom of Travancore between 1802 and 1809 during the reign of Bala Rama Varma Kulasekhara Perumal. He is best known for being one ...

. The remains of the fort can be seen near railway station, but neglected by both railway and archeology departments.

Culture

During the invasion of Sultan Alauddin Khilji of Delhi in 1311 AD by Malik Kapoor, Meenakshi Amman and Sundareeswarar were brought from Madurai to Venadu and hid in Parakodi Kandan Shasta temple near Aralvaaimozhi. Until 1368, Meenakshi Amman remained in Aralvaimozhi. From there she was taken back to Madurai.

Economy

Its pincode is 629301.

Muppandal Wind Farm The Muppandal Wind Farm is India's largest operational onshore wind farm. This project located in Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu. The project was developed by Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency. Its installed capacity is 1,500 MW, which makes ...

is located in Aralvaimozhi Town Panchayat. This farm is the largest in Asia and supplies the villagers with electricity for their needs. It is well known for being the greatest source of

wind energy Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wi ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

Poigai Dam The Poigai Dam in India was planned, built and inaugurated in 2000 by the then ruling government DMK. Kalaingar Karunaneethi, the chief minister of the time was instrumental in construction and Durai Murugan, public affairs minister opened the ...

, constructed in the year 2000 is serving water for irrigation purposes around the area. For the first time the dam was completely filled with water in 5 nov 2021 making it a wonderful place to visit.

Wind energy

The 1,500 megawatts (MW) Muppandal wind farm is the country's largest onshore wind farm which is the Asia's second largest windfarm. The project features a large number of wind turbines of varying sizes from 200 kilowatts (KW) to 1650KW.

Transportation

Railway station spelled "Aralvaimozhi", with station code AAY is situated here. It is connecting many employees of

ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; ) is the national space agency of India, headquartered in Bengaluru. It operates under the Department of Space (DOS) which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India, while the Chairman ...

_ Mahendragiri campus.

Gallery

Image:Aralvaimozhi-fort-remains1.jpg, Remains of Aralvaimozhi fort found near railway station Image:Aralvaimozhi-fort-remains2.jpg, Remains of Aralvaimozhi fort found near railway station Image:Aralvaimozhy station.jpg, Aralvaimozhi railway station, with the wind-power mills in the background

References

External links

News about heritage grinding stone found at Aralvaimozhi
- reported in ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

''
Poigai Dam
- In government's Water Resources Information System - Wiki Cities and towns in Kanyakumari district Kanyakumari Tourism in Tamil Nadu {{India-powerstation-stub