Baretaਬਰੇਟਾ

Where is Bareta?

Bareta is a town and municipal council in Budhlada tehsil of Mansa district, Punjab, in the Malwa region, close to the Haryana border in the south-western corner of the state. It belongs to the same Budhlada countryside as Budhlada town and villages such as Boha, and its railway station on the Delhi to Bathinda line has always been its link to the wider world.

Geography and people

The 2011 census counted 17,432 people in Bareta, up from 14,886 in 2001 and 11,537 in 1991: 9,239 men and 8,193 women living in 3,409 households. Scheduled Castes numbered 5,240, close to a third of the town. The municipal area covers 6.00 square kilometres. Its PIN code is 151501.

The railway town

The railway made Bareta. The town stands on the Jakhal to Bathinda section of the Delhi to Ferozepur line, the track that tied the princely-era countryside of the south to Delhi, and its station has been the town's front door ever since. Long-distance trains call here: the Avadh Assam Express, which crosses half of India between Assam and Punjab, stops at Bareta, so the small town has a direct train to Delhi in one direction and to the far east in the other. The grain market, the anaj mandi behind the station, grew up with the trains, and the wheat and paddy of the Budhlada countryside still move out through it.

The education town

Bareta is noted across Mansa district for what its families make of education. Despite the town's small size and limited infrastructure, its people have a record of reaching higher education and going on to work in health, engineering and administration, and the town's schools and its coaching and boarding schools draw students from the villages around it. For a small railway town, Bareta sends out more doctors, engineers and officials than its size would suggest.

The schools are easy to find in the town's daily geography: the girls' high school stands by the grain market, the Greenland Day Boarding Public School serves the Budhlada road side, and the villages around, such as Mander with its Akal Academy, use Bareta as their postal and market town. In a district where farming incomes are tight, Bareta's answer has been the classroom, and its examination results and its professionals working across Punjab and beyond are the town's quiet claim to fame.

Colonies and growth

The growing town has spread into planned colonies beyond the old core. The Mulazam Colony was developed by the Bareta Cooperative House Building Society on the Bareta to Budhlada road, and Aggarwal Colony, Municipal Colony and Astha Colony are among the other planned quarters. The grain market, the anaj mandi near the station, remains the working heart of the town, where the wheat and paddy of the surrounding villages are traded.

Bareta today

Bareta today is a small, self-contained municipal town: a station, a mandi, a ring of schools and colonies, and a bazaar that serves its own streets and the villages of the southern Budhlada countryside. Its growth in the last two census decades, from 11,537 people in 1991 to 17,432 in 2011, has been steady rather than fast, and its character has stayed that of a working railway town whose families invest in education and send their sons and daughters out across Punjab and India to professional work.

Railway, roads and getting there

Bareta station stands on the Delhi to Ferozepur railway line by way of Bathinda, on the Jakhal to Bathinda section, and long-distance trains such as the Avadh Assam Express call here. By the measures the town quotes for itself, it is 100 kilometres from Bathinda, 100 kilometres from Patiala, 170 kilometres from Chandigarh and 215 kilometres by rail, 260 by road, from Delhi. Buses link it with Budhlada, Mansa city and Sardulgarh.

What is the population of Bareta?

The population of Bareta was 17,432 at the 2011 census, 9,239 men and 8,193 women in 3,409 households. It had grown from 11,537 in 1991 and 14,886 in 2001.

What is Bareta known for?

Bareta is known in Mansa district for its railway station on the Delhi to Bathinda line and for the success of its people in higher education and in health, engineering and administration, well beyond what its small size would suggest.