Akola

The commercial city of Akola in Akola district, Maharashtra, in the Vidarbha region, 580 kilometres from Mumbai. The city was a key Nizam Shahi (1540-1636) and Mughal commercial centre on the Deccan plateau, taken by Berar Sultanate in 1596 and later held by the Marathi Nagpur Bhonsles (1740-1853). It passed to British rule under the 1853 Berar Agreement with the Nizam of Hyderabad. Akola became a key cotton-trading centre of the central Indian cotton belt after the 1872 Great Indian Peninsula Railway reached the city. Today Akola is the commercial centre of the Vidarbha cotton-and-pulses belt, with the Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth (1972 agricultural university) and the Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (1969) anchoring the region's agricultural research.