Sahnewalਸਾਹਨੇਵਾਲ

Where is Sahnewal?

Sahnewal is a town in Ludhiana district in the Malwa region of Punjab, India. It stands on the Grand Trunk Road corridor south-east of Ludhiana city, in the Ludhiana East sub-division, and is governed as a Nagar Panchayat with 13 wards. The town sits in the flat, intensively farmed Malwa plain, but its own economy is urban: most of its workers are in trade, transport, services and industry rather than in farming. Its railway station and the district airport both carry its name, which makes Sahnewal one of the best-connected small towns in Punjab. The town is the urban centre for the villages around it, which include two villages that share its name: Bir Sahnewal and Sahnewal Khurd are separate census villages in the same area, not parts of the town. Sahnewal's own identity is that of a road and rail town, grown up where the old Grand Trunk Road met the railway line.

Population and people

The Census of India 2011 counted 22,484 people in Sahnewal, living in 4,766 households. Of these, 11,989 were male and 10,495 female, an average sex ratio of 875 women per 1,000 men. Children under seven numbered 2,551. Scheduled Castes accounted for 5,330 residents, about 24 percent of the town. Literacy stood at 85.32 percent, with 17,007 literate residents, well above the Punjab average of the time. Of 8,370 total workers, 6,807 were recorded as other workers, the census category for non-farm jobs, while only 238 were cultivators and 151 agricultural labourers: a profile of a market and service town, not a village. Main workers numbered 7,487 against 883 marginal workers, and 1,680 of the workers were women. The average household held about five people. In the main worker categories, household industry employed 291 people and agricultural labour just 151, which underlines how completely the town's working life has moved off the land.

The night Guru Gobind Singh rested here

Sahnewal's oldest story belongs to December 1704. Local tradition holds that Guru Gobind Singh, travelling from Chamkaur Sahib towards Muktsar after the battles of that month, spent the night of 27 and 28 December 1704 under a reru tree at Nandpur, now part of the town. The tree is still pointed out at Gurdwara Reru Sahib, which takes its name from it. The town's main approach road is named Guru Gobind Singh Marg in the Guru's memory, and the tall brick entrance arch on that road, topped by a khanda, is the first sight of Sahnewal for most visitors. The town also has a mazaar of Pir Baba Bohri Shah, visited by local devotees.

Ludhiana's airport town

Ludhiana Airport, also called Sahnewal Airport (IATA code LUH, aerodrome code VILD), stands beside the town on the Grand Trunk Road. The Airports Authority of India lists the civil aerodrome at Sahnewal, Ludhiana 141120, spread over about 130 acres, and it has served civil and defence flights for the Ludhiana industrial region. A much larger airport is under development at Halwara Air Force Station, but Sahnewal remains the name on Ludhiana's air map, and the airport has long tied this small town into the working life of Punjab's biggest industrial city.

The Deol family's hometown

Across India, Sahnewal is best known as the hometown of the Deol family of Hindi cinema. Sunny Deol, the star of Gadar and Border, was born here on 19 October 1957, and the family kept its roots in the town even as film work took it to Mumbai. Sunny Deol later represented Punjab in Parliament as the MP for Gurdaspur from 2019 to 2024. The family's roots in this corner of Ludhiana district run deep: Sunny's father, the actor Dharmendra, came from the nearby villages of Nasrali and Dangon, and the town counts the whole Deol family among its own. For film fans, the town's name is inseparable from the family that carried it onto cinema posters across the country.

Getting there

Sahnewal railway station stands on the Ambala to Attari main line, with a branch line towards Chandigarh, so trains connect the town to Ludhiana, Ambala and Amritsar through the day. By road, the Grand Trunk Road (NH 44 corridor) passes the town, and Ludhiana city is a short drive to the north-west. Local vehicles use the PB-91 registration series of the Sahnewal transport office. The Ludhiana to Chandigarh railway line, opened in 2013, runs through the town, giving Sahnewal a direct rail link to the state capital as well.