ਮਲੋਟਮਲੋਟ

Malout is a city in Sri Muktsar Sahib district of Punjab, India, often called the cotton capital of Punjab. The 2011 census counted 81,406 residents. It grew from a 1920s railway market town beside the Bathinda-Karachi line into the commercial, educational and mandi hub of the district's cotton belt.

ਇਤਿਹਾਸ

Malout dates back several centuries and is associated with the Godara Chaudharys, Jat settlers remembered as the town's earliest founders. Even the name's origin is disputed. One telling breaks it into mal (goods) and out (outpost), a trading post on the old Multan-Delhi route under the British. Another says people of the Maan caste built a fort called Kacha Kot, and the place was known as Mankot Nagar, then Manout, then Malout. A third traces it to a popular wrestler, a mall, after whom the settlement was called Maal-di-out.

The modern town was made by the railway. In 1853, Chaudhary Nanaka Ram Godara of Lunkaransar in Bikaner bought about 4,800 acres from the British and divided the land among his sons Sardara Ram, Narayan Ram and Harji Ram Godara, who developed agriculture and industry. A railway station was planned around 1898, and Nanaka Ram donated land for the station and township. When the ਬਠਿੰਡਾ-Karachi railway line reached Malout in 1917-18, Harji Ram Godara set up Harji Ram Mandi, the market beside the station, and the Chaudhary families built the town's first three havelis in 1918.

Malout was formally established on 19 March 1920, when a seven-member committee bought 200 acres from the Zamindar of Sheikhhu for Rs 114,163.32 to lay out shops and residences. The market was renamed Edward Ganj on 17 November 1921 during the Prince of Wales's visit, with a water purification system inaugurated the same day. By the late 1940s the town had a post office, telephone exchange, guest house and cemetery, and its cotton and agricultural machinery trade had earned it the name cotton capital of Punjab. Chaudhary Surja Ram Godara, a member of the legislative council nicknamed the Cotton King, ran the Ch. Surja Ram and Sons Ginning and Pressing Factory.

Where is Malout?

Malout stands at 30.19 N, 74.499 E in the Malwa region of Punjab, in the southern cotton belt known for high cotton output per unit of land. ਸ੍ਰੀ ਮੁਕਤਸਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ lies about 30 km away, ਬਠਿੰਡਾ about 47 km, and ਫ਼ਾਜ਼ਿਲਕਾ about 51 km. The Pakistan border is roughly 55 km to the west. Its PIN code is 152107, its telephone code 01637, and its vehicle registration mark is PB-53.

ਲੋਕ

The 2011 census counted 81,406 people in the city: 43,244 men and 38,162 women living in 16,085 households, across 21 wards. Children under six numbered 9,632, about 11.8 percent of the population, and the sex ratio was 882 women per 1,000 men. Literacy stood at 68.05 percent (72.35 for men, 63.18 for women), and 34.44 percent of residents were from the Scheduled Castes. By religion, the city is about 74 percent Hindu and 25 percent Sikh, with small Muslim, Christian and Jain communities. The town has grown steadily: 56,868 people in 1991, 70,765 in 2001, 81,406 in 2011. Punjabi, Hindi and Bagri are spoken.

Places of interest

Malout's landmark institution is the Malout Institute of Management and Information Technology (MIMIT), a government institute established in 1998 on a 25-acre campus at Green Field Enclave near the New Grain Market. It is affiliated to I.K. Gujral Punjab Technical University in Jalandhar, approved by the AICTE, and runs B.Tech, BBA, BCA, B.Com, B.Sc, MBA and M.Sc programmes. DAV College Malout, affiliated to Panjab University in Chandigarh, and colleges such as Maharaja Ranjit Singh College and the Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa Institute of Engineering and Technology draw students from the surrounding towns and villages, making Malout the educational centre of the area.

The grain market remains the town's economic heart, with the newer mandi on the edge of the city and the old Harji Ram Mandi beside the station. The railway station area, the 1918 havelis of the Chaudhary families, and the town's gurdwaras, including Gurudwara Sri Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji and Gurdwara Shri Guru Teg Bahadur Sahib Ji, are the other landmarks visitors see first.

Notable people

Rohit Bansal, co-founder of the e-commerce company Snapdeal, was born in Malout, where his father was a grain merchant. Discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur, who finished sixth at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics and holds the national record at 65.06 metres, is from Kabarwala village near Malout. In politics, Dr. Baljit Kaur, a former eye surgeon at the Muktsar civil hospital, won the Malout assembly seat for the Aam Aadmi Party in 2022 and serves as a Punjab cabinet minister; Ajaib Singh Bhatti of the Congress won the seat in 2017.

Getting there

Malout has its own railway station (code MOT) under the Ambala division of the Northern Railway. It is a busy station rather than a junction: about 28 trains pass through, including ਬਠਿੰਡਾ-ਫ਼ਾਜ਼ਿਲਕਾ and Bathinda-Sri Ganganagar passengers and long-distance trains such as the Delhi-Sri Ganganagar Intercity, the Ambala-Sri Ganganagar and the Howrah-Sri Ganganagar trains. By road, NH-354, NH-9 and NH-7 connect Malout to the rest of Malwa and onward toward Delhi. Bathinda airport is about 28 km away.

Today

Malout remains the mandi and commercial centre of the western district, with cotton, wheat and paddy trading and agricultural machinery at its core. The cotton belt around it is among India's highest-yielding, though the trade has a fragile side: in September 2025 cotton sold below the minimum support price of Rs 7,710 a quintal at Rs 5,600-5,800, pushing farmers to demand intervention by the Cotton Corporation of India. The 2026 paddy procurement season brought the state's storage crisis to its mandis, with the chief minister seeking urgent lifting of wheat and rice stocks. The Malout assembly seat, constituency number 85 and reserved for Scheduled Castes since 1977, is one of the politically watched seats of Malwa.