When Arjuna was going to Dwarika with all Gopis during Mahabharata period, he was passing through the present Bhilwara region. There was a war between Arjuna and Bhils. Local tradition reveals that it came to be known as Bhilwara because it was mostly inhabited by Bhil tribes in old days. These Bhils were eventually driven away towards the hilly tracts and interior places of less importance by the ancestors of the peasant settlers. It is said to have come up in the middle of the 11th century when a Bhil tribal, supposedly one of the first settlers, built a Shiva temple on the site of the existing Bada Mandir or Jataun ka Mandir. This is in the area called Purana Bhilwara or Bhilwara Gaon, the oldest part of the town. If we are to believe this, the town is more than 900 years old.
Now the city boasts of producing around a billion meters p.a. of trouser fabric, making Bhilwara one of the major textile centres in India. The turnover of the textile industry is more than Rs. 10,000 crore p.a. The city has nine major and five small spinning mills. The total spindlage installed at Bhilwara are approximately 4.50 lacs, about 40% of the state capacity. It has 18 modern process houses to process polyester/viscose suiting with the annual capacity of a billion meters of fabric. In the weaving sector it has approximately 13,500 looms out of which about 9000 are modern shuttleless ones. Annual exports of textiles from the district is of more than Rs. 2750 crore.
Bhilwara has large number of hospitals. Mahatma Gandhi hospital is one of the biggest in the Mewar region. Ram Snehi Hospital is among major medical service providers: Smt. Kesar Bai Soni Hospital Assisted by Apollo Hospital Ahmedabad, Arihant Eye Hospital, Red crescent Uro-Surgical Hospital, Krishna Hospital and many more. Recently Bhilwara has emerged as an attraction for orthopaedic surgeries with Bhardwaj and Keshav hospitals. Bhilwara has the biggest private physiotherapy clinic of Rajasthan is shreeenath clinic before widely known as Shreenath Advance Physiotherapy & Research Clinic.
Ironically enough, now very few Bhils live in this area. Another version recounts that the present Bhilwara city had a mint where coins known as ‘bhiladi’ were minted and from this denomination was derived the name of the district. A town near the city named Mandal is assumed to be the base of the Mughals when they attacked Chittor Garh, the Mughal forces camped near the “talab” of the town of Mandal, ruins of the camp can still be seen there. A tower that served as a lighthouse was built on a small hill in Mandal. Now known as Mandara (minar) this small hill houses a Devi temple.
Bhilwara’s history can be traced back to prehistoric period when neolithic culture was flourishing at Bagore village. A pillar said to be of first century BC at Nandsa village is evidence of Vedic rituals and culture. Classical ‘Nagar’ style of temple architecture can be seen at temples of Menaal (Mahanaleshwer), Gurlan, Gadarmala, Momi, Kanpura and Mandalgarh places. Another notable landmark is the Badnore Fort some 70 km from Bhilwara. It is a seven-storey fort on the top of a hill and built in medieval Indian military style.
The main rivers in the district are Banas, Beduch, Kothari, Khari, Menaali, Unli and Meja dam (10 km from center). The water table is comparatively high between 10 to 20 meters. The district has about 86,600 wells and thousands of tube-wells, providing drinking water and irrigation facilities. Ground water is fresh and generally considered as potable although the concentration in fluoride was regularly above normal and can cause fluorosis. Since 2001, Bhilwara city receives water from the Kota-Chambal River.
Harni Mahadev: Founded by the ancestors of the Darak family, a Shivling lies under the mountain, built into a Shiva temple is 8 km from the city. It got the name Harni on the name of village near it, a nice place for people from the city for outing as it have hills around. On the occasion of Shiv Ratri a three-day fair is held here. Near this Chamunda mata Mandir is a hill from where one can have a view of whole city. Dadi dham temple is also there on the way.
A broad gauge railway line connecting Ajmer, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Kota, Indore Junction, Ujjain, Delhi, Bharatpur, Agra, Gwalior, Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Patna, Kolkata, Chittorgarh, Udaipur City, Mavli Jn., Ratlam, Vadodara, Surat, Mumbai and Hyderabad passes through the district. Kota (160 km) is the convenient railway station to provide connectivity to the southern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
The major industry is textiles, with more than 400 manufacturing units in the town. The main textile product is synthetic fabric used in trousers. It began with a spinning and knitting company named Mewar Textile Mills, owned by industrialist Shri Sampatmal Lodha, started in 1938. Thereafter Shri Laxmi niwas Jhunjhunwala started his first unit for synthetic textile in 1961 at Bhilwara. Then many other units came up.
Sports: Bhilwara is the source of national basketball team players. Coach Mohit Bhandari is the national coach for basketball. Bhilwara has many other state- and national-level players, some of them being Shanker Lal Gattani, Mahipal Solanki (basketball), Karun Pahwa (athletics), Varun Mansinghka (tennis), Anirudh Singh (rowing), Viraj Dhuri (weightlifting) and many others.
Bhilwara is the only center in the country producing insulation bricks. There are about 33 units in city.Shree Devnarayan Refractories is a manufacturer unit of insulation bricks. In the mining sector there is large scale mining of sandstone, soap stone and other minerals like feldspar, quartz, China clay, etc.
Kyara ke Balaji has a natural image of Lord Hanuman. It is said that the image spontaneously appeared on the rock. Patola Mahadev Temple,Ghata Rani Temple, Beeda ke Mataji Temple and Neelkanth Mahadev Temple are nearby attractions situated on the beautiful hills of the Aravali mountain range.
Mandal is around 16 km from Bhilwara city; it has the Battis Khambon ki Chhatri. As the name implies, this is a handsome chhatri made of sandstone with 32 pillars. Some of them have beautiful carving at the base and the upper portion. Within this chatri a huge Shivling is situated.
Also Mica mining has played a very important role in development of economic and social condition of Bhilwara. Lt. Sh. Jugal Kishore Sharaf and Lt. Sh. Chetan Sharaf owner of (JK Mica manufacturers) has played a very important role in manufacturing and distribution of this mineral.
25.35°N 74.63°E. It has an average elevation of 421 metres (1381 feet). It falls between the districts of Ajmer (in north) and Chittorgarh and Udaipur (in south). Major rivers flowing through the district are Banas, Bedach, Kothari, Khari, Mansi, Menali, Chandrabhaga and Nagdi.
Bhilwara has three outlets of the world famous restaurant chain, Subway. The presence of Subway in such a small city is quite astonishing as the exclusive nature of the chain has kept it away from far bigger cities of Rajasthan like Jodhpur and Udaipur.
The nearest airport is at Udaipur (165 km) — approximately 2.5 hours, by road. The other nearest airport is at Jaipur (251 km) which takes about 4 hours by road. The nearest international airports are in Jaipur, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad.
National Highway No. 79, part of the Golden Quardrilateral (four lane), and another National Highway No. 76 part of the East West Corridor (four lane) pass through the district. The total length of both section is 120 km.
Art: Great Indian miniature artist Badri Lal Chitrakar highlights the city on international maps for Indian miniature art. He was given the Shilp Guru award by the vice-president of India on 9 September 2006.
Manikya Lal Verma Govt. Textile & Engineering College, Bhilwara is the only textile college of Rajasthan. Institute of Technology and Management is the another engineering college in Bhilwara.