Dadਦਡ

A village inside the city's orbit

Dad is a village in Ludhiana West tehsil of Ludhiana district, Punjab, carried in the census as Dad (279), village code 033588, in the Ludhiana-I block, with its own gram panchayat. It stands along Pakhowal Road about 4 kilometres from Ludhiana city, close enough that the city's colonies, schools and markets are part of everyday life here. The name needs care: India has many villages called Dad, and this page is about this one alone, PIN code 142022. Under all the urban pressure around it, Dad remains a village in law, 529 hectares holding 9,932 people, but it is a village whose ground is slipping steadily out of farming.

When the land stops being farmland

The 2011 land record catches Dad mid-transformation. Of its 529 hectares, 287 hectares were already under non-agricultural uses: more of the village's ground sat under roads, houses and plots than the 242 hectares actually sown. Every sown hectare was irrigated, 240 hectares by wells and tubewells and 2 hectares by canal, and the recorded crops were wheat, paddy and potato. Cramming 9,932 people into 5.29 square kilometres gives a density of about 1,878 people per square kilometre, a figure closer to a small town than to a Punjab village. Dad is what the edge of a fast-growing industrial city does to a village: the fields remain on paper while the land market quietly reassigns them.

People and work

The census counted 9,932 people in Dad: 5,207 men and 4,725 women, in 2,037 households at about 4.9 people to a household. The sex ratio was 907 women for every 1,000 men. Children up to the age of six numbered 1,116, about 11 percent of the village. Scheduled Castes made up 2,659 people, about 27 percent of the population, and no Scheduled Tribe population was recorded. Literacy stood at 83.93 percent among residents aged seven and above, with men at 87.59 percent and women at 79.89 percent, a strong showing helped by the city's schools next door.

The work figures complete the urban picture. The census recorded 3,655 workers, about 37 percent of the village. Of the 3,310 main workers, a remarkable 2,559 were other workers in trade, transport, construction and services, against only 353 cultivators, 259 agricultural labourers and about 139 people in household industry. Counting the 345 marginal workers, the village had 462 cultivators and 284 agricultural labourers in all. Seven in ten main workers already earned their living outside farming in 2011, commuting into Ludhiana's economy or serving it from workshops and shops along the road.

Schools, banks and a railway station

Services match the half-urban character. The 2011 directory recorded government schools at every level, from pre-primary to senior secondary, along with private primary, middle and secondary schools. The village has its own post office and sub post office and mobile phone coverage, with a common service centre 5 to 10 kilometres away. Public and private bus services both run, alongside autos and taxis, and the directory even records a railway station as available to the village. Banking is fully present: an ATM, a commercial bank and a co-operative bank in the village, and agricultural credit societies besides. A public distribution system shop, a weekly haat and a regular market, an anganwadi centre, an ASHA worker and a sports field round out the list. Power supply in 2011 ran to 12 hours a day for domestic use and 14 hours for agriculture.

The smaller entries in the record fill in daily life. Drinking water came from treated tap water, backed by hand pumps and tubewells that worked through the summer. The village was covered under the total sanitation campaign, with a community waste disposal system after house-to-house collection, though no community toilet was recorded. Self-help groups operated in the village, there was a sports club and recreation centre, a daily newspaper supply and an assembly polling station. Even the drainage, open pucca and kutcha channels discharging to water bodies, reads like a settlement halfway between village and town: organised enough to record, not yet built over.

Healthcare: the one missing piece

Against all that equipment stands one striking gap. The 2011 Village Directory recorded not a single government health facility inside Dad: no community health centre, no primary health centre, no health sub-centre, no allopathic hospital and no government dispensary, not even a veterinary hospital. What the village had instead was private and informal care: three medical practitioners, three traditional practitioners and faith healers, and three medicine shops, backed by an ASHA worker for community health. For anything serious, residents make the short trip into Ludhiana, about 4 kilometres away, where the district's hospitals and specialists are concentrated. It is the sharpest contrast in Dad's record: a village rich in banks and schools that the public health system had not reached at all.

How far is Dad village from Ludhiana?

Dad is about 4 kilometres from Ludhiana city, along Pakhowal Road in Ludhiana West tehsil of Ludhiana district, Punjab. Its PIN code is 142022.

Does Dad have a hospital?

No government health facility was recorded inside Dad in the 2011 Village Directory. The village had private medical practitioners and medicine shops, and hospital care is available in Ludhiana, about 4 kilometres away.

Is Dad a village or part of Ludhiana city?

Dad is still a separate village with its own gram panchayat, in Ludhiana West tehsil and the Ludhiana-I block. Its land and work figures, though, already look urban: most of its ground is under non-agricultural use and most of its workers earn outside farming.