ਬੁਢਲਾਡਾਬੁਢਲਾਡਾ

Budhlada is a municipal council town in eastern Mansa district, in the Malwa region of Punjab, India, with 26,172 residents in the 2011 census. It is the headquarters of its own subdivision, tehsil and development block, and it serves the villages around it as a grain market, a railway town and a college town.

Where is Budhlada?

Budhlada is in the eastern part of Mansa district in southern Punjab, 22 kilometres from the district headquarters town of Mansa and about 70 kilometres from Bathinda. It stands at about 29.93 degrees north and 75.57 degrees east, at an average elevation of 211 metres, and the Haryana border is about 25 kilometres away.

The town gives its name to Budhlada subdivision, Budhlada tehsil and the Budhlada development block. The tehsil counted 254,706 people in the 2011 census, most of them in villages, and the block office oversees development work in 87 village panchayats. For those villages, Budhlada is the place for the tehsil office, the market committee, the primary health centre and the bus and train connections described below.

History and the name tradition

Local tradition, recorded by the Mansa district administration, links the name Budhlada to two brothers, Budha and Ladha, who are remembered as Khatri by caste. The story is best read as the town's own tradition about its beginnings rather than a documented founding, because no dated founding record comes with it.

The district account places the early settlement in the Kaithal state. When Kaithal did not support the British during the uprising of 1857, the state was annexed, and Budhlada later became part of Karnal district. The same account remembers the old town as one of the largest markets of East Punjab and as a major centre for recruiting soldiers, second, it says, only to Rohtak. One recruit it names is Hawaldar Joginder Singh of Datewas village, who received the Ashoka Chakra.

The railway age strengthened that market, giving farmers and traders a direct route toward Delhi and Bathinda, and in the twentieth century the town grew around its mandi, its station and its schools. On 13 April 1992 the Budhlada subdivision came into being, the date the district administration records, and the town has been an administrative headquarters within Mansa district ever since.

Geography and people

Budhlada stands on the flat plains of southern Malwa, in a farming landscape of cotton, wheat and paddy fields. The municipal area covers about 4 square kilometres. Punjabi is the language of daily life, spoken in the Malwai form common across the south of the state.

The Census of India 2011 counted 26,172 people in the town, up from 23,521 in 2001 and 18,717 in 1991. There were 13,832 men and 12,340 women, a sex ratio of 892 women for every 1,000 men. Children aged 0 to 6 numbered 2,882, about 11 percent of the population. The census counted 18,680 literate residents, a literacy rate of 80.2 percent among people aged seven and above. Scheduled Castes numbered 5,217 residents, workers numbered 8,726, and the town had 5,116 households.

By faith, the 2011 census counted Hindus at 69.7 percent of the town and Sikhs at 28.05 percent, with small Jain and Muslim communities alongside. That mix is visible in everyday life in the town's temples, gurdwaras and bazaars, and in the school and college population drawn from the villages around it.

What is Budhlada known for?

Budhlada is known first for its grain market and second for its college. The market committee runs an Anaj Mandi and a paddy yard where the surrounding villages sell wheat, paddy and cotton, and the district administration counts 16 rice mills and 8 cotton factories in the town. In harvest season the mandi sets the rhythm of the day, and commission agents, transporters and shopkeepers all work to its calendar.

The second answer is education, covered in the next section. Between the mandi and Guru Nanak College, a town of about 26,000 people serves a tehsil of more than 250,000, and a farmer can sell a crop, settle paperwork at the tehsil office and visit a child at college in a single trip.

Education and Guru Nanak College

Guru Nanak College is the town's best known institution. It was started in 1971 as a tribute to the 500th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, by eminent people of the region who wanted affordable higher education in an area the college itself describes as backward, rural and remote. It was run at first by local management, and on 9 November 1994 it was handed over to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.

The college is affiliated to Punjabi University, Patiala, and is listed under sections 2(f) and 12(b) of the UGC Act 1956. It now offers 18 postgraduate and 16 undergraduate courses, including skill based vocational programmes, with 197 faculty members and more than 7,000 students. The town also has an Industrial Training Institute, the Indira Gandhi College for Women, government senior secondary schools and DAV schools, all noted by the district administration.

Railway, roads and getting there

Budhlada railway station, code BLZ, stands on Bhikhi Road and is run by the Delhi Division of Northern Railway. It has two platforms, and the district administration describes the line through the town as the Bathinda to Delhi rail line. Trains that halt here include the Punjab Mail between Mumbai and Firozpur, the Avadh Assam Express, the Patalkot Express, the Farakka Express, the intercity service between Delhi and Shri Ganganagar, and the passenger service between Jind and Firozpur.

By road, Mansa is 22 kilometres away and Bathinda about 70 kilometres. The town has its own PRTC bus depot, and the district administration notes bus services to almost every city of Punjab. With the Haryana border about 25 kilometres away, road and family ties link Budhlada closely with the Haryana towns across the border as well.

Budhlada today

Today Budhlada is the administrative and commercial anchor of eastern Mansa district. The municipal council looks after water supply, sewerage and street lighting, and the town has a primary health centre, a veterinary hospital, a post office and the tehsil and block offices that serve the area.

There are no grand monuments here, and that is the point. Budhlada shows the working Punjab of mandis, colleges and railway platforms that most people in Malwa actually live in. Come in harvest season, when the grain market is running at full pace, and the town explains itself.