Places of Interest

Gotthani Shiv Mandir (Gupta Kashi)

It is known as gupta kashi because of having a battery of grand ancient temples. The religious importance of the place is multiplied thousand times due to the fact that this is located on the confluence of Renu, Sone and Vijul river. It is 6 km west chopan. Numerous artistic black stone idols belonging to 11th and 12th century abound here. This is the chief pilgrim centre of tribals. Shivratri is the chief festival and function over here. Besides, there is 15 day long fare in which local artist display their art and entertain the viewers, visitors and tourist and thereby keep alive and enrich their art tradition and culture.

Kund Vasini Dham(kudari devi):

This shaktipeeth of great religious and historical importance is situated on the western bank of river sone in the 35 km west-south of district headquarter. The temple of great pauranic value is built in khajuraho style on khuta and chood system. There is complete no use of cement and gurdurs etc. Huge numbers of devotees visit round the year to offer their worship to goddess. This is also equally important from tourist point.

Amila bhawani dham

Situated at a distance of 77 km in the hills of tariya range of overa division, people have great respect and reverence for this place. Beside local residents devotees from adjoining states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand etc come and visit here in large groups.

Panch Mukhi Mahadev

churk: situated on the hill, 3km from district headquarter. It is said that the Panchmukhi (five headed Lord shiva) appeared in fifth century. The caves on the lower hills are filled with paintings and carvings suggesting that place would have been inhabited by tribals and that they might have recorded their desires and feeling in artistic manner in line with their culture and tradition. There are in all sixteen such historic caves attracting huge number of tourists and devotees.

Nal Raja Mau

situated on the way connecting district headquarter with vijayagah. It is located at a distance of 15 km from district headquarter in the vicinity of mau village. Here there is a grand and stupendous statue of sahasra shiv accompanied with numerous other idols along with one extra large statue of Lord Buddha.

Shivdwar

This ancient but excellent shiv mandir is about 40km north-west from district headquarter and 10 km from Ghorawal. This stupendous shiv temple contains the astounding blackstone idol of shiv and parvati in the procreational posture which is 3 ft high.Quite a good number of black and brown stone idols are also kept nearby. It appears that this might have been a great place for shiv sadhna. Shivratri is the main festival and there is huge gathering on this occasion. Throughout sawan there is a tradition of Jalabhishek by kawariyas. People flock from different parts of the country to worship lord Shiva over there. There is a museum run by department of archaeology containing numerous idols collected from adjoining areas.

Mukhafall

This beautiful waterfall is situated 40 km west of district head quarter on the bank of river Belan in Ghorawal tehsil. Here the water of river belan is falling from a height of about 100 ft. The scenic beauty of the waterfall and its rich natural surrounding compels the tourists to visit the place again and again. A huge number of beautiful rock painting add to the beauty and specialty of the place.

Mahuariya kaimur

Mahuariya kaimur jeev Bihar: 16 km north-west from district headquarter. Full of scenic beauty, breathtaking beautiful place, abounding in wild life, like black deer etc besides rare aromatic and medicinal plants. The serenity, richness, vividity of the nature over here compels the tourists to visit the place again and again.

Anpara

Anpara is a town in Sonebhadra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It hosts a Anpara Thermal Power Station with a total installed capacity of power generation of 2830MW. It is built aside Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar Lake and the Rihand River (a tributary of the Son River).[citation needed]. It is well surrounded by smalls hills from the Deccan plateau region.Owing to the rising number of educational institutes in Anpara and nearby towns, Anpara has been a part of rapid rise in educational facilities and competency in the region.

Hanuman Mandir, Jhingurdah

Anpara : This stupendous temple of Mahaveer Hanuman is grand in architecture and quiet ancient. This is 116 km from district headquarter, attracting huge number of devotees and tourist.

Shaktinagar

Shaktinagar is a small town in Sonbhadra, Mirzapur Division, Uttar Pradesh near Varanasi, India.The Pin Code of Shaktinagar is 231222. NTPC plant of 2000MW thermal energy generation capacity.The NTPC’s PLF (plant load factor) is high at around 98% and it is the mother plant of NTPC all over India. It was established in 1975 and started its operations in 1980 with 7 units operating (200MW * 5 and 500MW * 2). The source of water it uses is the Rihand Dam and the source of coal is the NCL mines around Shaktinagar like Jayant, Duddhichua, Nigahi, Kakri, Khadia and Bina.The coal supplies from NCL has made it possible to produce about 10515 MW of electricity from pithead power plants of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd (UPRVUNL) and Renupower division of M/s. Hindalco Industries. The region is now called the power capital of India. The ultimate capacity of power generation of these power plants is 13295 MW and NCL is fully prepared to meet the increased demand of coal for the purpose. In addition, NCL supplies coal to power plants of Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd, Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) and Haryana State Electricity Board.

Jwalamukhi Shaktipeeth

Shaktinagar : Situated at Shaktinagar, this temple is 113 km from district headquarter. The temple adjoins Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh and Bihar. Its importance and religious value is considered on par with Vindhyadham and Maihardham. It is believed that the tongue of Maa Sati Bhavani had fallen over here which is why the peeth is named Jwalamukhi coming under the category of Sidhpeeth. This is one of the highest seats of reverence,devotion and sadhana. There is a huge festival organized every Navaratra attracting enormous crowd.

Renukoot Nagar Panchayat

Renukoot is a city and a nagar panchayat in Sonbhadra district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Renukoot is 68 km south from the district headquarters Robertsganj and 158 km from Varanasi.Renukoot is an industrial town. It is well known for the Hindalco aluminium plant and Rihand Dam. It is situated in eastern Uttar Pradesh sharing borders with Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. It is about 434 km from the capital city Lucknow and 1010 km from Saharanpur , thus making it the only city that has great distances with other cities in one state. When Uttarakhand was a part of Uttar Pradesh, the greatest distance was between Uttarkashi and Renukoot was 1223 km.

Renukeshwar Mahadev Mandir

65 km from district headquarter, this temple is situated at Renukut. This temple is built and beautifully maintained by Hindalco family. Lord Shiva along with his consort Parvati is the chief diety here. On the very entrance there is a grand Sun temple. This awesome place is most favorite point for innumerable devotees, visitors and tourists.

Rihand Dam

Rihand Dam, also known as Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar, is a concrete gravity dam located at Pipri in Sonbhadra District in Uttar Pradesh, Its reservoir area is on the border of Madhya pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. It is on the Rihand River which is the tributary of the Son River. The catchment area of this dam is spread in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh whereas it supplies irrigation water in Bihar located in the downstream of the river. Rihand dam is a concrete gravity dam with a length of 934.21 m. The maximum height of the dam is 91.44 m and was constructed during period 1954-62. The dam comprises 61 independent blocks and ground joints. The powerhouse is situated at the toe of the dam, with installed capacity of 300 MW (6 units of 50 MW each). The Intake Structure is situated between blocks no. 28 to 33. The Dam is in distress condition. It is proposed to carry out the rehabilitation works in the dam and the powerhouse. The F.R.L. of the dam is 268.22 m and it impounds 8.6 Million Acre ft of water. It is one of the biggest reservoir by its gross storage capacity in India but sufficient water is not flowing in to the reservoir. The construction of the dam resulted in forced relocation of nearly 100,000 people Many super thermal power stations are located in the catchment area of the dam. These are Singrauli, Vindyachal, Rihand, Anpara & Sasan super thermal power stations and Renukoot thermal station. The high alkalinity run off water from the ash dumps (some are located in the reservoir area) of these coal-fired power stations ultimately collects in this reservoir enhancing its water alkalinity and pH. Using high alkalinity water for irrigation converts the agriculture fields in to fallow Alkali soils.

Hindalco aluminium plant

The Hindustan Aluminum Corporation Limited was established in 1958 by the Aditya Birla Group. In 1962 the company began production in Renukoot in Uttar Pradesh making 20 thousand metric tons per year of aluminium metal and 40 thousand metric tons per year of alumina. In 1989 the company was restructured and renamed Hindalco.

Fossils Park

ANOTHER FOSSIL park was discovered in Sonebhadra disrtrict recently. Over 150-crore-year-old fossils were found in Badagaon village under the Chopan Vikas Khand. The fossils are greater in number than those found in the park of Salkhan village.

After identification and discovery of one more fossil park in Sonebhadra district. the district has found its place not only in Uttar Pradesh but also on the world map. The district has this honour as two fossil parks were found in a district and a Vikas Khand. Now the Sonebhadra district is being considered as a lucky place where the first evidence of life on earth was found. After the discovery of a large number of fossils there, the possibility of finding hydrocarbon. uranium and phosphorite has increased.

The new fossil park of Badagaon was discovered when Dr. Mukund Sharma, a scientist of the Birbal Sahani Institute in Lucknow were at the fossil park in Salkhan village.

In the meantime, a shepherd came there and asked them to follow him. They reached Jata Shankar Pahari of Badagoan village and observed that the fossils of Salkhan and Badagaon villages were similar.

Later, they came to the conclusion that these fossils were stramatolite and were over 150-crore-year-old. After studying and research, the fact came to light that the geologist John Oadon had accepted the presence of fossils but did not brief the people about their creation. He described these fossils as lime-stone.

Dr. Mukund Sharma said that the discover of fossils in Salkhan and Badagaon villages would help in counting the days of a solar year.