Amgaon (the mango
village), is a large village of 7,228 inhabitants in 1997 in Gondia
tahsil, about 60 miles north-west of Bhandara and two miles from the
Bagh river where an irrigation project is in progress. It is also
a railway station on the Nagpur-Raipur broad gauge line of the
south-eastern railway ; the settlements, however, lies about a mill from
the railway. Amgaon was the capital of the erstwhile Amgaon zamindari
which consisted for the most part of a long and narrow strip of land in
the valley of the Bagh river, widening considerably towards the south.
The village is now the headquarters of a development block with a
panchayat samiti. At Padampur on the Amgaon Deori road about a mile and
half east of Amgaon, there are remains of massive stone buildings and
old images of Hindu gods like Vishnu and Sarasvati and of some Jain
Tirthankaras, which indicate that the place is probably identical with
ancient Padampura, the birth-place of Bhavabhuti, one of the greatest
Sanskrit playwrights, the author of the Mahaviracharita, Malati-Madhava
and Uttara-Rama-charita. Today an arts and commerce collage at Amgaon
perpetuates the memory of Bhavabhuti. The village is best known as the
site of the most important and perhaps the largest cattle market in the
district. Being a railway station it is a well situated for the export
of cattle to places outside the district and even outside the State. The
railway also handles large quantities of bamboo and other forest
produce. Butchers from Kamptee and other places throng the
Friday-Saturday weekly market for the purchase of in infirm and worn-out
cattle. Buffaloes from Indore, Jaypur, Bhopal, Nimad, etc., brought here
for sale, are principally purchased by agriculturists from Chhatisgadh.
Bulls and horses are also traded. The market has become a lucrative
source of revenue to the Zilla Parisha, realisations by way of tax
amounting to an average sum of Rs. 3,000 at each market during the busy
season from April to June. Receipts vary from Rs. 100 to 400 at each
market during the slack season. Amgaon is a wholesale centre for
collection and export of agricultural produce, there being a regulated
market. Essential amenities and facilities such as market yard, godown,
cattle shed, water troughs, rest-house and fencing are provided. There
are bidi manufacturing and rice dehusking units. There is fine tank here
which was improved by Government during the famine of 1900 at a cost of
Rs. 15,000. It has since been greatly expanded and serves the double
purpose of irrigation and pisciculture. Educational institutions, in
addition to primary schools and the college, include three high schools
one of which is maintained by the Zilla Parishad, a balak mandir and a
library. A maternity home, an ayurvedic and an allopathic dispensary,
the latter maintained by the Government, and
veterinary dispensary provide medical care to both beast and man. There
are a post and telegraph office, a police station, a rest-house and a
range forest office. Two fairs, one in honour of Khandoba in
Margashirsha (November-December) and another in honour of Mahadev in
Vaishakha (April-May) are held annually. At one of these fairs free food
is distributed by the former zamindar family.