The greater Sambalpur-Jharsuguda area has the potential to become a major metropolitan area of Orissa. The following maps give some idea of this area.

The population numbers from 2001 obtained from this map are as follows:

More up-to-date numbers from the World Gazetteer is as follows:

Sambalpur District:

no. name census 1991 census 2001 calculation 2009
1 Sambalpur 131 138 153 643 170 259
2 Burla 34 640 39 204 42 338
3 HÄ«rākÅ«d 23 833 26 394 28 037
4 Redhākhol   13 723 15 035
5 Kochinda 12 161 13 586 14 530
6 Kalamati   8 893 9 743
7 Rengali   8 682 9 512

Jharsuguda District:

no. name census 1991 census 2001 calculation 2009
1 Jhārsuguda 65 054 76 100 84 237
2 Brājrājnagar 69 667 76 959 81 522
3 Belpahar 24 607 32 826 40 150
4 Bandhbahal   7 609 8 336

Baragarh District:

no. name census 1991 census 2001 calculation 2009
1 Bargarh 51 205 63 678 73 884
2 Barpāli 16 371 19 157 21 226
3 Padampur 12 971 15 442 17 336
4 Tora   13 707 15 017
5 Attabira   9 999 10 955
6 Kumbhari   8 058 8 828
7 Janhapada   6 850 7 505

Sundergarh District:

no. name census 1991 census 2001 calculation 2009
1 Raurkela 215 509 224 987 228 130
2 Raurkela Industrial Township   206 693 226 454
3 Raj Gangpur 39 549 43 594 46 144
4 Sundargarh 30 352 38 421 45 195
5 Birmitrapur 33 556 29 447 26 174
6 Jalda 13 116 11 961 10 955
7 Bānposh 9 564 10 233 10 589
8 Hatibandha 8 521 9 297 9 766
9 Lathikata   6 896

7 555

Some of the recent notable developments of this area are:

  • An airport is being developed in Jharsuguda (This needs to be speeded up.)
  • UCE Burla has now become Vir Surendra Sai University of Technology
  • Several major industries are coming up (for example; Vedanta Aluminum in Jharsuguda)
  • There are 6 engineering colleges in the area: 2 in Bargarh, 1 in Jharsuguda, 1 in Sundergarh, VSSUT in Burla and Silicon in Sassan.
  • Sambalpur-Jharsuguda as a whole has excellent Railway connectivity.

However, a more planned approach is needed. In particular, a core metro area consisting of Burla-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda-Belpahar-Brajarajnagar needs to be formally formed and a CDP (Comprehensive Development Plan) must be developed at the earliest. In addition if local participation in developing more private HRD institutions is enhanced and local  handing of industrialization is done in a smarter way (not just blind knee-jerk opposition) then that will propel this area to a Tier II metro area of India.