Khodad is a town in the

Pune district Pune district (Marathi pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, uɳeː is the most populous district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The district's population was 9,429,408 in the 2011 census, making it the fourth most populous district amongst I ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

state,

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 ...

. Khodad Village is situated in Junner taluka of Pune district of Maharashtra state, India. It is famous for

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Pune, Junnar, near Narayangaon at khodad in India, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes of 45 metre diameter, observing at metre wavelengths. It is operated by t ...

(GMRT), the largest telescope at metre wavelengths in the world, which attracts radio astronomers from different countries. Khodad is located on Junner & Ambegao taluka border. Khodad is surrounded by Junnar Taluka towards west, Khed Taluka towards South, Parner & Ambegaon Taluka towards East, Shirur Taluka towards North.

Location

Village is at 9 Kilometer from Narayangaon, which is one of the most important town in Pune District. Location of Khodad is on East of Narayangao towards Ambegao taluka. Situated at 87 km from pune on Pune Nashik highway. this region belongs to Desh or Paschim Maharashtra region. It fallows under Pune Division. It is at 26 km from Junnar, taluka headquarters. 5 170 km from Mumbai State capital of Maharashtra.4 Jadhavwadi (3 km), Thorandale (5 km), Ranjani (5 km), Walati (6 km), Bhorwadi (2 km), Nagapur (7 km) are the nearby villages to Khodad. Manchar, Junnar, Shirur, Talegaon Dabhade are the nearby Cities to Khodad. Village is situated at bank of Meena River. There is pyramid Shape Mountain at East of Khodad towards Parner taluka end. Local people call it as Khodad che Pathar (plateau of Khodad) Manjarwadi is located at 5 km West from Khodad. On South on the opposite side of Meena River there is hermitage of Mahanubhav panth. Narayangad is located at 5 kilometer North of Khodad. It is believed that Narayangao got its name from this fort. The fort is from the Satvahan dynasty and was used as a watch point for the Junnar Paithan route. According to Census 2011 information the location code or village code of Khodad village is 555388. Khodad village is located in Junnar Tehsil of Pune district in Maharashtra, India. It is situated 26km away from sub-district headquarter Junnar and 75km away from district headquarter Pune. As per 2009 stats, Khodad village is also a gram panchayat. The total geographical area of village is 2855 hectares. Khodad has a total population of 4,188 peoples. There are about 920 houses in Khodad village. Junnar is nearest town to Khodad which is approximately 26km away.

Inhabitants

The population of Khodad is around 4500 to 5000.

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

is the main language of majority of the people.

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Hanuman Hanuman (; sa, हनुमान, ), also called Anjaneya (), is a Hindu god and a divine '' vanara'' companion of the god Rama. Hanuman is one of the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. He is an ardent devotee of Rama and on ...

Temples each at South & North extreme of Village boundaries. Also there are two more Temples of

Vithoba Vithoba, also known as Vi(t)thal(a) and Panduranga, is a Hindu deity predominantly worshipped in the Indian state of Maharashtra and Karnataka. He is generally considered as a manifestation of the god Vishnu, or his avatar Krishna. Vithoba is of ...

Rakumai &

Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...

right on the bank of Meena river. New Temple of God Ram near vipul pokharkar house.

Occupation

Agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

is main occupation of population. Some members from Farmer family got the job in GMRT as compensation of land acquired by government for GMRT project. Those families who had lost their land under GMRT project in 1984 had been awarded with one job post at GMRT as 2ndry level employees. Most of the young generation had shifted to Mumbai or other big cities in Maharashtra for Jobs & business. There are some family business in Khodad which include Carpenter, Gavandi, Kasar, Vani etc.

Agriculture

There are two seasons of cropping

Kharif Kharif crops, also known as monsoon crops or autumn crops, are domesticated plants that are cultivated and harvested in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh during the Indian subcontinent's monsoon season, which lasts from June to November depending o ...

Rabi Rabi may refer to: Places * Rábí, a castle in the Czech Republic * Rabí, a village in the Czech Republic * Räbi, a village in Estonia * Rabi, Panchthar, a village development committee in Nepal * Rabi Island, a volcanic island in northern F ...

Wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

Groundnut Groundnut may refer to: * Seeds that ripen underground, of the following plants, all in the Faboideae subfamily of the legumes: ** '' Best Basketball Player'', Obinna Udunni ** '' Arachis villosulicarpa'', a perennial peanut species ** ''Vigna sub ...

Sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

Potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

Onions An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...

, Bajari are some of the main crops in khodad. But farmers in village are taking up the new way farming to yield non traditional crops like

Tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

Cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...

and making it success story.

Weather

Khodad observe three main climate seasons

Summer Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...

Winter Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures ...

and

Monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

. Highest temperature is mostly recorded in month of April. Pre monsoon rain arrives in last week of May. Monsoon rains hit the village at start of June. It have average rain fall around 700 mm. Heavy rain affect the daily routines of villagers very frequently. Season of winter starts in November and it continue until February. Sharp fall in temperature is indicator of arrival of winter. Day temperature varies between 25 and 10

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

. Nights are more cooler as compared to day time. Some time temperature falls till 4 to 5 Celsius.

Tourism

Junnar taluka is noted for the presence of 27 leopards in a 500sq m area. Leopard Rehabilitation Center in Manikdoh, around 25 km west to the Narayangaon is becoming major tourist attraction ever since its establishment.

Malshej Ghat Malshej Ghat (माळशेज घाट) is a mountain pass located on Maharashtra's Kalyan–Ahmednagar Road in the Western Ghats range. The site is home to hundreds of various species of flora and fauna, particularly avian species such a ...

a famous tourist destination in the western ghats is at a 45 minutes drive away.

GMRT

GMRT is operated by the

National Centre for Radio Astrophysics The National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) (Hindi:राष्ट्रीय रेडियो खगोल भौतिकी केन्द्र) of India is a research institution in India in the field of radio astronomy is located ...

, a part of the

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the D ...

, Mumbai. At the time it was built, it was world's largest interferometric array. And that was the time when first Khodad came on world map. The Site of Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) about 10 km east of Narayangaon town on the Pune-Nasik highway & at 2 km from Nearest village Khodad. This site was selected by National Center for Radio Astrophysics after an extensive search in many parts of India. After considering several important criteria Khodad was selected for establishing this project as a part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research program. low man-made radio noise, availability of good communication, vicinity of industrial, educational and other infrastructure and a geographical latitude sufficiently north of the geomagnetic equator in order to have a reasonably quiet ionosphere which will be helpful to observe a good part of the southern part of sky are some of the criteria which are taken into consideration while making final decision. It took 10 years to build this project after first proposal in 1984. TIFR professor

Govind Swarup Govind Swarup (March 23, 1929 – September 7, 2020) was a pioneer in radio astronomy. In addition to research contributions in multiple areas of astronomy and astrophysics, he was a driving force behind the building of "ingenious, innovative ...

conceived and directed the design and construction of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), consisting of 30 fully steerable parabolic dishes of 45m diameter that are located in a Y-shape array of about 25 km in extent 8 around the Khodad.

Forts

The famous Maratha Emperor

Shivaji Shivaji Bhonsale I (; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680), also referred to as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the declining Adils ...

was born on

Shivneri Shivneri Fort (Marathi pronunciation: �iʋneɾiː is a 17th-century military fortification located near Junnar in Pune district in Maharashtra, India. It is the birthplace of Shivaji, the emperor and founder of Maratha Empire. History Shivneri ...

Fort, 16 km west to the Narayangoan.

Shivneri fort Shivneri Fort (Marathi pronunciation: �iʋneɾiː is a 17th-century military fortification located near Junnar in Pune district in Maharashtra, India. It is the birthplace of Shivaji, the emperor and founder of Maratha Empire. History Shivner ...

is one of the most famous historic place in Maharashtra (India). The Narayangad fort is about 8 km north-east to the Narayangaon from which it is believed that town got its name. Ganpirya, Chawand, Nimgiri, Dhakoba, Hadsar, Jivdhan, Harishchandra are some of the forts nearby and some of which have become great attraction for trekking.

References

{{reflist Cities and towns in Pune district