ਮਾਨਸਾਮਾਨਸਾ

Where is Mansa district?

Mansa district is a district in the Malwa region of southern Punjab, India, with its headquarters in Mansa city. It borders Bathinda district to the north west, Sangrur district to the north east and the state of Haryana to the south, which makes it one of the southernmost districts of Punjab. The district covers 2,198 square kilometres and is divided into three tehsils: Mansa, Budhlada and Sardulgarh.

For administration the three tehsils are organised into five development blocks: Mansa, Budhlada, Sardulgarh, Bhikhi and Jhunir. Census 2011 recorded 240 villages and five towns in the district, so this is a deeply rural district shaped by its villages, its market towns and the roads and railway lines that link them to Bathinda, Barnala and Sirsa.

History: a young district with old roots

Mansa is one of Punjab's younger districts. It was formed on 13 April 1992, when the south eastern part of Bathinda district was separated to create a new district with Mansa town as its headquarters. Budhlada became a sub division on the same date, and Sardulgarh followed as a sub division in 1993, when its tehsil headquarters moved from Jhunir.

The land itself is much older than the district. Before Independence, this part of Malwa lay in the world of the Phulkian princely states, and its villages and market towns grew around farming, cattle trade and seasonal fairs. Local tradition links the founding of Mansa town to Bhai Gurdas, who is said to have come from Dhingar village and married into a Dhaliwal family here. A samadh in his memory stands in the town, and a fair is still held there every year in March and April.

Geography and people

The district is mostly flat farming plain, with a few sandy pockets, a very hot and dry summer and a cold winter. The Ghaggar river passes through Sardulgarh tehsil in the south western corner, while most fields depend on canals supplemented by tubewells. Punjabi, in its Malwa form, is the mother tongue and the official language, and daily life follows the culture of the Malwa belt.

Census 2011 counted 769,751 people in the district, at a density of 350 people per square kilometre. About 78.75 percent lived in villages and 21.25 percent in towns. The sex ratio was 883 women for every 1,000 men, and average literacy was 61.83 percent, with male literacy at 67.31 percent and female literacy at 55.68 percent. Sikhs formed 77.75 percent of the population and Hindus 20.34 percent in 2011, with small Muslim, Jain and Christian communities.

The cotton economy

Mansa sits in the cotton belt of Punjab and is fondly called the area of white gold. Agriculture is the backbone of the district economy, and the official district site notes that in November and December a visitor can see the cotton crop in white bloom across the fields. Cotton is sown in summer and picked in autumn, and its price and health shape the income of farming families, labourers, transporters and market traders alike.

Cotton is not the only crop. NABARD's district plan lists wheat, paddy and cotton as the main crops, with oilseeds, gram and vegetables also grown, and canals as the main source of irrigation. Industry has historically been limited, with trade and small scale activity concentrated in the towns, but the district also hosts a major power asset: the 1,980 MW Talwandi Sabo thermal plant at Banawala village, which supplies its power to Punjab State Power Corporation Limited.

Towns and villages

Mansa city, the headquarters, was the largest town in 2011 with 82,956 people. It holds the district courts and administration, the main grain market and a railway station on the Bathinda to Delhi line, and its municipality has functioned since 1952. Budhlada, 22 kilometres from the headquarters according to the district administration, counted 26,172 people in 2011 and is the district's second town, also on the Bathinda to Delhi railway, close to the Haryana border.

Sardulgarh, in the south near Haryana, counted 19,219 people in 2011 and serves the villages of the Ghaggar side of the district. The smaller towns are Bhikhi, with 17,825 people, and Bareta, with 17,432, both working as local mandi and service centres. Among the villages, Joga is one of the largest, with 10,180 people in 2011. Moosa, recorded as Mussa in census lists with 3,742 people, is known across Punjab as the home village of the singer Sidhu Moose Wala (1993 to 2022), who took his stage name from the village.

Places of interest and local life

This is not a district of large monuments, and its interest lies in local life. The best known gathering is the annual fair at the samadh of Bhai Gurdas in Mansa town in March and April, where devotees gather in large numbers. In Ubha village, the Jai Durga Maa Maisar Mandir draws visitors from the surrounding area, and every town has its gurdwaras, mandirs and weekly markets that serve the villages around it.

The seasons set the rhythm. Summer is intensely hot, the monsoon months are humid, and winter mornings can be cold and foggy over the fields. Harvest and picking seasons fill the mandis with trolleys and labour, while fairs, kabaddi and village sports, and family events in the diaspora, keep the district connected to Punjabis who have settled in Canada and other countries but still call a Mansa village home.

Getting there and today

Mansa is well connected for a rural district. The Bathinda to Jind to Delhi railway crosses the district, with stations serving Mansa and Budhlada, and the district administration also places Mansa on the Barnala to Sardulgarh to Sirsa road. National Highway 703 and National Highway 148B pass through the district, linking its towns with Bathinda, Barnala, Patiala side routes and Sirsa in Haryana. Bathinda is the nearest large city for specialised hospitals, higher education and long distance services.

Today Mansa remains an agricultural district working to widen its options in education, trade and industry while its farmland carries the risks of water use, crop pests and changing prices that affect the whole cotton belt. Its strength is the close network of its 240 villages and five towns, each with its own history. The Kosh carries a page for every village in the district, with census facts, tehsil details and local notes, so readers can move from this district guide to the village their family comes from.