Transport and Tourism of Madhya Pradesh: Routes and Sites

Madhya Pradesh sits at the centre of the country with no coast of its own, so everything that moves through it moves by rail or by road, and the state has long been the corridor between north and south India. The same central position gives it the richest spread of monuments of any state after the old capitals: three World Heritage Sites, two jyotirlingas, the finest medieval forts of the plateau and the tiger reserves that bring foreign visitors. State papers of MPPSC, MP Police, the patwari and vyapam examinations ask the headquarters of the railway zone, the junction on the north to south trunk route, the airports and their new names, and the district of every famous site, so transport and tourism are best revised together.

Railways

The state’s own railway zone is the West Central Railway with its headquarters at Jabalpur, created in 2003 when the new zones were carved out, and its divisions are Jabalpur, Bhopal and Kota. Parts of Madhya Pradesh fall under other zones as well: the Ratlam division of the Western Railway covers Malwa, the Jhansi division of the North Central Railway covers Gwalior and the Chambal, and the Nagpur division of the South East Central Railway reaches the Satpura districts.

• Itarsi in Narmadapuram district is the state’s great junction, the point where the Delhi to Chennai trunk route crosses the lines running east and west, and almost every long train through central India changes direction or crew here.
• Bina, Katni, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Ujjain and Ratlam are the other junctions that examinations name, Katni being one of the busiest freight junctions of the country.
• The station at Bhopal formerly called Habibganj, renamed Rani Kamlapati, was the first railway station in India redeveloped with private participation.

Roads and road transport

Madhya Pradesh has one of the largest road networks among the states, built around two old trunk routes. National Highway 44, the longest national highway in India, running from Srinagar to Kanyakumari, enters the state in the Chambal near Morena and Gwalior and leaves it beyond Betul, passing Sagar and Narsinghpur on the way. The old Agra to Mumbai road crosses the state through Gwalior, Indore and Dhar, which is why Indore grew as the commercial capital. The Madhya Pradesh Road Development Corporation builds and maintains the state highways, many of them on toll and annuity models. One fact of the state is often asked: the Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation was wound up in 2005, and since then bus services in the state have been run almost entirely by private operators on permits, unlike the neighbouring states that still keep a public corporation.

Airports and waterways

Being landlocked, the state has no port and only limited river navigation on the Narmada, so air links matter for tourism. The Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport at Indore is the busiest airport of the state; the Raja Bhoj Airport serves Bhopal; the Dumna Airport serves Jabalpur; the Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia Airport serves Gwalior; and the small airport at Khajuraho exists almost entirely for visitors to the temples.

Tourism: the three World Heritage Sites

Khajuraho holds the temples of the Chandela kings, the Kandariya Mahadeva being the largest, and a dance festival is held there every February. Sanchi carries the Great Stupa with its carved gateways and an Ashokan pillar, the oldest Buddhist sanctuary still standing in India. Bhimbetka, in the Vindhya hills, shows prehistoric painting over a span of thousands of years. Two of the three sites lie in Raisen district, which is a fact papers like to test.

Temples, forts and hills

Madhya Pradesh has two of the twelve jyotirlingas, Mahakaleshwar at Ujjain on the Shipra and Omkareshwar on an island in the Narmada, where a 108 foot statue of Adi Shankaracharya, called the Statue of Oneness, was unveiled in 2023. Maihar in Satna district has the Sharda Devi temple on Trikuta hill, Amarkantak is the source of the Narmada and the Son, and Chitrakoot on the Mandakini belongs to the story of the Ramayana. The Bhojeshwar temple at Bhojpur, built by Raja Bhoj, holds one of the largest lingas carved from a single stone.

• Gwalior Fort, called the pearl among the fortresses of Hind, stands above the city with the Man Mandir palace and the Teli ka Mandir.
• Mandu, the old Mandavgarh, holds the Jahaz Mahal, the Hindola Mahal, the pavilion of Rani Roopmati and the tomb of Hoshang Shah, the first building in India made of marble.
• Orchha on the Betwa keeps the Jahangir Mahal, the Raja Mahal and the Chaturbhuj temple of the Bundela rulers.
• Chanderi is known for its weaving and its fort, Burhanpur for the Mughal gateway to the Deccan and Bagh in Dhar district for its painted caves.
• Pachmarhi in the Satpura is the only hill station of the state, and Dhupgarh near it is the highest point of Madhya Pradesh.
• At Bhedaghat near Jabalpur the Narmada runs between marble cliffs and falls at Dhuandhar, the smoke cascade.

The wildlife circuit of Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Satpura and Panna is the strongest draw of all, and the state has more than once been given the national award for the best tourism state. Tourism is promoted by the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board with the line that the state is ajab, the strangest and most wonderful of all, after an older slogan that invited visitors to see the heart of Hindustan, and the state tourism corporation runs hotels and resorts at most of the sites named above.