ਘਲ ਕਲਾਂਘਲ ਕਲਾਂ

Where Ghal Kalan sits

Ghal Kalan is a large village in Moga tehsil of ਮੋਗਾ district, Punjab, in the Malwa region. It has its own gram panchayat in the Moga-II development block, covers 2,432 hectares and carries census village code 034052, with PIN code 142048. Most villages of its size sit on a single road; Ghal Kalan has both the Ludhiana to Ferozepur national highway and the Ludhiana to Ferozepur railway line passing through it, and a railway station of its own. The 2011 directory recorded ਮੋਗਾ, about 7 kilometres away, as its nearest town, and the road distance to the city is about 8 kilometres. Villages recorded around it include ਸਫਫੁਵਾਲਾ, ਰੱਟਿਆਂ, ਮੋਥਨਵਾਲੀ and ਸਲਿਆਨਾ.

People and work

The 2011 census counted 9,299 people in Ghal Kalan, up from 8,760 in 2001: 4,929 men and 4,370 women living in 1,830 households, about 5.1 people to a household. Spread over 2,432 hectares, the density works out to about 382 people per square kilometre. The sex ratio was 887 women for every 1,000 men. Children up to the age of six numbered 986, about 11 per cent of the village. Scheduled Castes made up 4,125 people, about 44 per cent of the population, and no Scheduled Tribe population was recorded.

Literacy in 2011 stood at 69.11 per cent among residents aged seven and above, with men at 72.77 per cent and women at 64.96 per cent, above the Moga district average of the time. The census recorded 3,051 workers, about 33 per cent of the village. Of the 2,974 main workers, the largest group by a wide margin, 1,839 people, were other workers in trade, transport and services, well ahead of 704 cultivators working their own land and 342 agricultural labourers; a further 77 people were marginal workers. Counting everyone, the village held 716 cultivators against 356 agricultural labourers. It is the workforce of a highway and railway village with a college on its land: most people here earn outside farming.

Land and farming

Farming still covers most of the land. Of the village's 2,432 hectares, 2,164 hectares were net sown area in the 2011 record, and every sown hectare was irrigated. The water leans on groundwater more than the canal belt around it suggests: wells and tubewells irrigated 1,208 hectares against 956 hectares from canals. About 268 hectares were under non-agricultural uses such as the settlement, roads, the railway and ponds. The crops recorded for the village are wheat, rice and maize. Farm power supply was recorded at 8 hours a day, and an agricultural credit society was recorded in the village.

The park that remembers Neerja Bhanot

On the Moga to Kotkapura road, on his own farmland, the village sculptor Manjit Singh Gill has built a memorial park he calls Mahaan Desh Bhagat Park. Its best known work is a life-size statue of Neerja Bhanot, the chief purser of Pan Am Flight 73, hijacked at Karachi in 1986, who helped hundreds of passengers get off the aircraft and was killed herself; she was awarded the Ashok Chakra, its youngest recipient. Gill, who studied fine art at the Government College of Arts in Chandigarh and gave up a Punjab government officer's post to sculpt full time, has said he decided on the memorial after a survey he ran in 2013 found that few college students could say who she was. The statue was completed and put on display in 2014, two years before the film Neerja carried her story across India, and her brother Aneesh Bhanot told reporters the family believed it was then the only memorial to her in the country.

Neerja Bhanot does not stand alone in the park. Gill has filled it with more than forty of his statues, among them Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, the runner Milkha Singh and the former president A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, all paid for from his own pocket. After the film's release in 2016, visitors began arriving in the thousands, including groups from as far away as Tamil Nadu, and the park remains the place outsiders most associate with this farming village.

Schools and an engineering college

The Census 2011 Village Directory recorded two government primary schools, two government middle schools, two government secondary schools and one government senior secondary school in Ghal Kalan, so children can study in the village up to Class 12, and directory listings add private schools at the same levels, including a St Joseph convent school. The directory also recorded something few villages have: a private engineering college inside the village. It is the Lala Lajpat Rai Institute of Engineering and Technology, set up in 1998 under the Shiva Educational Trust on the Moga to Ferozepur road at Ghal Kalan, about 8 kilometres from Moga. Its campus of about 6 acres runs engineering and postgraduate courses with hostels for boys and girls, so students from across the region live in the village through the academic year. The nearest government degree college is at Moga.

Health and daily services

Health facilities recorded inside the village in 2011 were a primary health centre, a dispensary and a veterinary hospital, and the census detail adds a mobile health centre, five registered medical practitioners, a faith healer and two medical shops, so day-to-day care is available locally. Drinking water in the directory table came from untreated tap water supplies, with treated supply not available in the village. The village has its own post office, with the nearest sub post office 5 to 10 kilometres away. A commercial bank stands in the village, while the nearest cooperative bank and ATM were 5 to 10 kilometres away in 2011. A PDS ration shop, an anganwadi centre, an ASHA health worker and sports facilities were all recorded, and domestic power supply was 12 hours a day.

Faith in Ghal Kalan

No shrine of Ghal Kalan appears in the national gurdwara and temple directories opened for this page, and religious life in the village is local, centred on its own gurdwara and temples. The landmark outsiders travel to see is not a shrine but Gill's memorial park on the Kotkapura road.

Getting there

The village's own railway station, Ghal Kalan (GKX), is a single platform halt on the Ludhiana to Firozpur Cantt line, between Dagru and Moga in the Firozpur division of Northern Railway, served by the DEMU and passenger trains that run the line. A private bus service runs in the village itself; the nearest public bus service was 5 to 10 kilometres away in the 2011 record. The national highway passes through the village on pucca, all-weather roads, and Moga, 7 to 8 kilometres away, is the practical hub for administration, colleges and onward travel.

What is the population of Ghal Kalan?

The population of Ghal Kalan was 9,299 at the 2011 census, living in 1,830 households in Moga tehsil of Moga district. It had grown from 8,760 in 2001.

What is Ghal Kalan known for?

Ghal Kalan is known for the Mahaan Desh Bhagat Park, built by the sculptor Manjit Singh Gill around his life-size statue of Neerja Bhanot, for the Lala Lajpat Rai Institute of Engineering and Technology on its land, and for having its own railway station on the Ludhiana to Ferozepur line.

Does Ghal Kalan have a railway station?

Yes. Ghal Kalan station, code GKX, is a one platform halt on the Ludhiana to Firozpur Cantt railway line, about 6 kilometres by rail from Moga, served by DEMU and passenger trains.