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Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is a city situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district. The city is named for its abundance of banyan ( vad) trees. Vadodara is also locally referred to as the Sanskrutik Nagari () and Kala Nagari () of India.
The city is prominent for landmarks such as the Laxmi Vilas Palace, which served as the residence of the Maratha Empire royal Gaekwad dynasty that ruled over Baroda State. It is also the home of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
Akota flourished under the Maitraka dynasty, although it experienced periodic severe flooding. A huge hoard of Jain bronzes, largely dating from this period, was found at Akota's old site, indicating that the city was a centre of Jainism. The bronzes include images of various as well as an elephant-shaped incense burner. Many of them have inscriptions that have been used to indicate when they were made.
In the 6th century, the town's inhabitants shifted away from the river to a new site near Akota's modern centre. At Kothi, which also now forms part of Vadodara, evidence of habitation also first emerges during this period.
An early mention of Vadodara itself is in an 812 copper-plate grant of the Rashtrakuta dynasty. It records Karka Suvarṇavasha, second ruler of the Lata branch of the Rashtrakutas, giving the village of Vaḍapadraka, in the province of Aṅkoṭṭaka and identified with present-day Vadodara, to a Brahmin from Valabhi. Meanwhile, Akota continued to flourish during this period.
A manuscript of the Panchavastuka written at Vadodara in 1123 indicates that the province of Lāṭa was then governed by Santūka, a minister of the Chaulukya king Jayasimha Siddharaja. At some point, Santūka organised a rathayatra, or chariot procession, at Vaṭapadraka. Several other manuscripts from Vadodara are known from this period, including a Prakrit work composed by Chandraprabhasuri in 1128 along with two copies of Jain works made in 1156 and 1168 respectively. Another manuscript, although copied at Dabhoi, was written by a scribe named Vosari whose father was a pandit named Kesava who came from Vadodara.
During this period, merchants from Vadodara contributed to the temples at the Chaulukya capital of Patan. At some point, the minister Tejpal, returning from a victory at Godhra, stopped at Vadodara for several days and renovated the local shrine of Parshvanatha. Around 1264, shrines to Mahavira and Adishvara were built at Vadodara by one Pethad Shah.
In 1451, Vadodara was sacked by troops under Mahmud Khalji, ruler of the Malwa Sultanate. Later, during the reign of Mahmud Begada, a major re-foundation of Vadodara took place. A new city called Daulatabad was built, close to the old site. The Muslim name evidently did not stick, but the city itself did, and this new foundation became the basis for the modern city of Vadodara. A later atlas by John Ogilby refers to people moving from the old town to the new one.
In the late 1600s, Gujarat was increasingly attacked by Maratha and Koli raids. One raid, by the Kolis, hit Vadodara in 1705; they looted the city for two days.
The highest recorded temperature was on 11 May 1960 crossed with on 19 May 2016, while the lowest recorded temperature was on 15 January 1935.
Vadodara has been ranked 6th best “National Clean Air City” (under Category 1 >10L Population cities) in India.
Hinduism was the main religion, practiced by 85.39% of the population. Gujarati Muslims was the second-largest religion (11.20%). Jains were 2.02%, Christians 0.82%, and Sikhism 0.45%.
At the time of the 2011 census, 71.37% of the population spoke Gujarati, 14.83% Hindi, 7.60% Marathi language and 1.91% Sindhi language as their first language.
Located in Vadodara are over 35% of India's power-transmission and distribution equipment manufacturers and an estimated 800 ancillaries supporting the big players in power sector equipment manufacturing and engineering industry. Larsen & Tourbo (L&T) has established "Knowledge City" in Vadodara. This Knowledge City is the hub of several key businesses of the L&T Group. The power business, mid- and downstream Hydrocarbon, L&T Technology Services, and the engineering joint venture L&T-Sargent & Lundy operate out of the facility. It also houses manufacturing facilities for switchgear, air circuit breakers, and moulded-case circuit breakers.
Bombardier Transportation, a Canadian company, has established a rail-coach manufacturing plant in Savli along with other manufacturing companies such as Alstom, Siemens, and Voltas. This plant manufactures coaches for Delhi Metro and the New Generation Rollingstock for Brisbane, Australia. The plant is also manufacturing trainsets for Delhi - Meerut RRTS. Beside this Vadodara holds a key position in Gujarat's pharmaceutical industry, as many small and big pharma companies are located in Vadodara.
Tata Advanced Systems Limited, a subsidiary of Tata Group and Airbus joint venture, has set up a C-295 transport aircraft manufacturing facility at Vadodara as part of a Rs 22,000 crore deal to supply 56 such aircraft. The C-295 will replace the Avro aircraft in service with the Indian Air Force. This project will make Vadodara a defense manufacturing hub. The first "Made in India" aircraft is expected in September 2026.
The revenue for the city is generated through taxes, service provision, and state government assistance. The taxes include general taxes, conservancy taxes, and water taxes, whereas the nontax or service revenue can include water charges, rent from municipal properties, public service charges, etc. The VMC budget for the year 2020–2021 against the proposed budget of Rs 3,554 crore last year, stood at Rs 3,770 crore this year.
In 1963, construction began on Gujarat Refinery outside of Vadodara, on a 1800-acre tract surrounded by the villages of Koyali, Ranoli, Karachia, and Dhanora. Jawaharlal Nehru ceremonially laid the foundation. The refinery's first trial production was in October 1965. As of 1973 it was producing 4.3 million tonnes of various products per year and it employed some 1,450 people. It was the third public-sector refinery to be built in India.
Among the refinery's products as of 1979 were gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, jet fuel, and various industrial materials such as benzene, toluene, and naphtha. Crude oil was piped in from Ankleshwar and from northern Gujarat (around Kalol and Vadagam), and condensate was also supplied from the Khambhat gas fields.
In early 1978, two new petrochemical plants began operation in Vadodara: a naphtha cracking plant in March and a low-density polyethylene plant with an 80,000-tonne capacity in April. Both were operated by Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (now part of Reliance Industries) and both were also the first plant of their kind in Gujarat. In March 1979, IPCL also formally commissioned a major petrochemical complex at Vadodara that included an aromatics plant (producing dimethyl terephthalate and two types of xylene), an oil refinery, and seven other downstream facilities. The 7 downstream facilities were: 1. acrylonitrile, 2. synthetic rubber, 3. low-density polyethylene, 4. polypropylene, 5. ethylene glycol, 6. detergent alkylate, and 7. acrylic fibre. There were also plans in the works for a polyester yarn plant as part of the complex with a capacity of 3,500 to 7,000 tonnes per year.
| +Vadodara City Officials |
The Vadodara city's municipal corporation or Maha Nagar Palika is a part of the Vadodara district. The district is set up in three distinct levels of administration, which are the collectorate - the district falls under the jurisdiction of a collector; the prant offices which take care of the affairs of taluka and other state government offices and the mamlatdar or taluka offices. The overall district administration has four departments: city survey, district supply office, district planning office, and district election office.
The City elects one member to the Lok Sabha (parliament) and five to the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha (Assembly). All of the five assembly seats of Vadodara were won by the BJP during the legislative elections in 2017. In the 2021 VMSS/VMC elections, the BJP won 69 seats, seven seats went to the Congress.
The city limits of Vadodara have expanded since: an area of was added in the year 2002, followed by of additional expansion to the north of the city in 2006. The villages Sayajipura, Bapod, Kapurai, Khatamba, Tarsal Kalali, Gorva, Chhani and Vemali were added to the VMC boundaries in 2017 and the latest expansion notice has been given to the seven villages of Sevasi, Bhayli, Vemali, Bil, Karodiya, Undera and Vadadala in the year 2020.
The highest body of power in the municipal corporation is the General Board, which is composed of elected members from each ward within the VMC. There are 19 wards under the VMC, each of which consists 4 seats of councilor which has a 50% reservation of seats for women. There are a total of 76 councilors elected for this VMC term where every councilor is appointed in various committees for a period of one year.
The VMC has twelve executive committees apart from the standing committee, which look after the specialized functions of VMC. These committees include public works committee, water work committee, drainage and sewerage committee, health committee, town planning committee, estate management committee, recreation and culture committee, electric committee, and legal committee. Each committee consists of 12 councilors each. The formulation of an additional ward committee is recommended by the Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporation Act of 1949 for a city exceeding the population of three lakhs- which is above the current population of Vadodara.
There are six sitting MLAs who have VMC under their jurisdiction and are currently part of the state ministry. Rajendrabhai Trivedi is the BJP MLA and incumbent 14th Speaker of Gujarat Legislative Assembly, who was unanimously elected on 9 February 2018. Jitendra Sukhadia is the Minister of Tourism, Non-resident Gujarati division as well as the Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs. Saurabhbhai Patel is the incumbent Energy Minister of Gujarat while Yogeshbhai Patel heads the Ministry of State for Narmada Development. The MLA Madhubhai Shrivastav is the state appointed Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation (GAIC) chief and Manisha Vakil is BJP's Vadodara City Assembly Constituency MLA.
These departments together provide services, infrastructure, and management for the entire city. The engineering department manages infrastructure and services provided through cells or subdepartments such as bridge cell, drainage project, town development, streetlight, electrical sewerage, mechanical sewerage, building project, solid-waste management, road, storm-water drainage, water work, land, and estate. The health department takes care of public health-related issues and services through its solid-waste management, health, and ICDS subdepartments. The health department also has a subdepartment for managing birth, death, and marriage registrations. The support department handles all IT and administration-related issues and services, with cells such as IT, accounts audit, census, PRO, election, real estate (acquisition), shops and establishment, assessment, and UCD-NULM departments.
Vadodara's population grew the fastest during the decade between 1961 and 1971. The Vadodara Municipal Corporation drew up the first official urban plan for the city's growth in 1970, the Vadodara Development Plan. The VUDA was formed in 1980. The second Development Plan, developed in 1984, included decentralising the city's infrastructure. During the mid-late 70s early 80s, development on the city's outskirts focused on building cheap, low-income housing for industrial workers. By the 1990s, the focus had shifted to mixed-density, "self-sustainable settlements" in peri-urban areas, especially on the west and southwest sides of town. Farmland was purchased from nearby villages to provide space for these new developments, which caused a large drop in cultivated acreage and overall agricultural produce in the area.
Initially, major industrial development happened on the city's north side; the east side also saw plenty of development because of its location near the old city core. The south and west were relatively less populated in comparison.
Various unplanned slum areas have been formed by rapid immigration from rural areas that outpaced formal city planning. These slum areas consist largely of temporary ( kachcha) structures with communal toilets or none at all. They are often found in less-desired areas along river banks and nullah or in other low-lying spots. Sanitation in these developments is generally poor.
A low of relatively lower-income, blue-collar workers live in industrial housing developments on Vadodara's outskirts. Economically Weaker Section (EWS) housing and slums are located especially on the northwest, northeast, and east sides of the city. In recent decades (as of 2021), major industrial development has taken place along the NH-8 corridor. Religious institutions like temples and have especially developed on the east side of town, while the Transport Nagar development is located on the northeast.
The Sardar Sarovar Dam which is one of the drinking water sources for the city, had halted supply temporarily in 2019 after receiving complains about the high sulphur content from the Narmada river, but the water supply was restarted again after a few days. The other sources of water are the Mahi River for which the water is obtained from a French well that has naturally purified water through layers of sand. The Ajwa Sarovar is another source of drinking water and is filtered at Nimeta Water Purification Plant.
In January 2019, VUDA and GWSSB joined hands to reduce the acute shortage of drinking water for residential societies near close to the Vadodara city. A quantity of 3 MLD water per day for three years will be provided as a temporary measure until water from the Timbi pond and Narmada canal reaches these residences.
The sewage as of 2001 covered 55% area and 65% of the present population when the VMC limits extended to . The Public Health Engineering Laboratory (PHEL) has been working on a comprehensive sewerage system Master Plan for of sewers and nine sewage treatment works. The plan master plan is designed for the year 2021 where the project aims to increase the sewage coverage from 55% to 95% by area and 65% to 93% by population for an area of .
The under-construction Mumbai–Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor, India's first High-speed rail line will have a stop at the existing Vadodara Junction railway station. The station is planned for renovation to accommodate the new line.
The Baroda Cricket Association Stadium (BCA Stadium), also known as the Vadodara International Cricket Stadium or Kotambi Stadium, opened on 22 December 2024 through organized three one day international series between India and West Indies women's teams in Vadodara, Gujarat. This stadium is the home ground for Baroda Cricket Association in the domestic circle.
Vadodara would also have a sports university in Desar.
In 1909 there were plans to open a school for the deaf. - The article uses "Baroda" to refer to Vadodara.
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