ਮਾਨਸਾਮਾਨਸਾ

Mansa is a city and municipal council in southern Punjab, India, and the headquarters of Mansa district in the Malwa region. Standing on the Delhi to Bathinda railway line in the heart of the cotton belt, it counted 82,956 residents in the 2011 census and shares the district nickname, the Area of White Gold.

Where is Mansa?

Mansa is in the southernmost part of Punjab, on the flat Malwa plain close to the Haryana border. It is the headquarters of Mansa district, which covers 2,174 square kilometres and is divided into three tehsils: Mansa, Budhlada and Sardulgarh. Bathinda district lies to the northwest and Sangrur to the northeast. The city stands about 212 metres above sea level and is governed by a municipal council of 21 wards.

History: a memorial, a railway and a young district

Local tradition says the town was founded by Bhai Gurdas, who came from Dhingar village and married into a Dhaliwal family of this place. The tradition holds that when his in-laws would not let his wife leave with him, he sat in meditation outside their house, and when the family finally agreed, he declined to take her, saying he had given up worldly life. A samadh, or memorial shrine, was raised where he sat, in the southeast of the town, and a fair is still held there every March and April, when devotees offer laddus and jaggery.

For centuries the area formed part of the Phulkian Sikh states, and in the twentieth century it was a tehsil town of Bathinda district. A Class A municipality has run the town since 1952. The railway on the Delhi to Bathinda branch line and the cotton trade made Mansa a market long before it became a capital. On 13 April 1992 the present Mansa district was carved out of Bathinda district, and the town became its administrative headquarters, gaining the district courts, offices and colleges that anchor it today.

Geography and people

Mansa sits in open cotton, wheat and paddy country. Summers are fiercely hot, and in November and December the fields around the town turn white with open cotton bolls, the crop that gives the district its white gold nickname. Agriculture remains the backbone of the local economy, and the town's work follows the farming year.

The 2011 census counted 82,956 people in the city, up from 72,627 in 2001. Hindus formed about 55 percent of residents and Sikhs about 43 percent, with small Muslim, Jain, Christian and Buddhist communities. There were 882 women for every 1,000 men, and children under six made up about 11 percent of the population. About 77 percent of residents aged seven and above were literate. Punjabi, in its Malwai form, is the language of daily life. The wider district held 769,751 people in 2011, most of them in villages that look to Mansa for markets, courts, hospitals and higher education.

What is Mansa known for?

Mansa is known first as a cotton town. Its grain and cotton market, ginning mills and warehouses handle the harvest of the southern Malwa plain, and in the picking season the mandi sets the pace of the whole town. The district also hosts large power projects, including a thermal plant of 1,980 megawatts at Banawala village and a solar power plant, which have added an industrial side to an farming district.

The town is also the district's service centre. The District Administrative Complex, courts, government hospital, Nehru Memorial Government College, Mata Sundri Girls College and S.D. Kanya Mahavidyalaya draw people in from across the district every working day.

Places of interest

The best known site in the town is the memorial of Bhai Gurdas Ji in the southeast, where the annual fair in March and April brings large crowds. Central Park is the town's green meeting place, and the railway station and old market streets show the trading town Mansa grew from. A short drive away, Moosa village draws visitors from across the world as the home village of singer Sidhu Moose Wala, while Budhlada and Sardulgarh, the district's other tehsil towns, make easy half-day trips.

Notable people

Mansa district has produced an outsized share of Punjabi talent. Sidhu Moose Wala, the singer and songwriter from Moosa, took the district's name worldwide. Playwright Ajmer Singh Aulakh, a Sahitya Akademi award winner, came from Kishangarh Pharwahi village. Singers Kulwinder Billa, from Dhaipi village, and Shipra Goyal, actors Nirmal Rishi, Aman Dhaliwal, Deep Dhillon and Gavie Chahal, and Olympic rower Sawarn Singh, from Dalelwala village, all trace their roots to this district. In politics, the Mansa assembly seat, constituency number 96, is held by Vijay Singla of the Aam Aadmi Party.

Getting there

Mansa railway station stands on the Delhi to Bathinda branch line of Northern Railway, with trains including the New Delhi to Bathinda Intercity Express, the Punjab Mail, the Avadh Assam Express and the Firozpur to Mumbai Janta Express, besides regular passenger trains to Delhi. By road, National Highway 703 and National Highway 148B connect the town with Bathinda, Barnala, Budhlada and Talwandi Sabo, and state and private buses run to towns across Punjab. The nearest airports are Chandigarh, about 180 km away, and Delhi, about 248 km away.