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PLACES
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GHUGUS.
Ghugus is a coal mining village in Candrapur tahsil, about
20.92 km. (13 miles) from Candrapur connected by a branch railway line shooting off at Tadoli from the Candrapur-Wardha main line of the Central Railway. Here two collieries are worked yielding a good variety of non-coking coal. Besides Ghugus proper whose population was 1,767 in 1961, two separate habitations have grown round the collieries with population of 1,862 and 1,660, respectively. All the three places have each a post office, a medical practitioner and a primary school, excepting Ghugus proper where there is a middle school. The colliery areas have a rest house each and at the first of these a weekly bazar is held on Sundays.
There are three caves in the rocky ground near Ghugus. In one of them there is an idol of Bhairavdev with broken legs. The local tradition regarding this is that in former times while thefts and dacoities used to take place elsewhere, none could be committed at Ghugus, and consequently the thieves and dacoits cut off the legs of the idol. In front of this idol there is a stone standing erect called Bahi or the sleeve of Sita. Not far off there is another small cave containing a stone, which the people say is the mother of Bhairavdeva. The idol of Bhairavdeva was said to be increasing in height. To stop it his mother put a stone on his head. Between these two caves are two stones which are said to mark the place where a fight between a tiger and a wild boar had taken place. Ghugus is now interesting as a coal mining town and as the locality where coal was first discovered in this district. The first colliery known as Mayo Colliery was opened in 1870 by Lord Mayo. It ceased working the very next year.
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