Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagarਸਾਹਿਬਜ਼ਾਦਾ ਅਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਨਗਰ

History

Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar district was created in 2006, carved out of Rupnagar and Patiala, and named for the eldest son of Guru Gobind Singh. Its headquarters town, Mohali, was itself laid out in the 1960s as Punjab's planned answer to Chandigarh's growth, a grid of sectors spilling south from the union territory.

What began as an industrial estate and a spillover suburb became, in the decades after, the urban face of modern Punjab: wide roads, sector markets, and a skyline that rose with the IT boom.

The IT corridor and the stadium

Mohali's IT parks and office towers now hold the region's technology industry, drawing professionals from across Punjab and giving the district a young, migrant character unlike the agricultural districts around it. The Punjab Cricket Association stadium, among India's great cricket grounds, has hosted Tests, one-dayers and World Cup matches, and the city's name travels with every match played here.

Aerocity, the planned township by the international airport, and the education institutions along the Kharar highway extend the urban belt further each year.

The district today

The district counted about 995,000 people in 2011 across roughly 1,094 square kilometres, and has grown fast since. Its towns are Mohali, Kharar, Dera Bassi and Zirakpur, each now effectively a suburb of the Chandigarh conurbation. The rural fringe still farms wheat and vegetables, but the district's story is urban.

Village-level pages for Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar district are being added to the Kosh.