ਸ਼ਾਹਕੋਟਸ਼ਾਹਕੋਟ

Shahkot is a tehsil town in Jalandhar district of Punjab's Doaba region, on National Highway 703 between Jalandhar and Moga. Famous for its red chilli peppers, rooftops turn red in the drying season, it administers some 176 villages. The 2011 census counted 14,488 residents in the town, 166,532 across the tehsil.

Where is Shahkot?

Shahkot lies in the south of Jalandhar district, in the Doaba, the fertile plain between the Beas and the Sutlej. It sits on the Jalandhar–Moga road, now National Highway 703 (the old NH-71), which runs on to Barnala and Sirsa. The Sutlej river, the boundary between the Doaba and the Malwa, flows a few kilometres to the south of the town. Shahkot is both a tehsil and a subdivision of Jalandhar district, one of the district's five tehsils, and its tehsil takes in around 176 villages, from Malsian and Kakra Kalan to Kotla Surajmal and Nangal Ambian. The tehsil spreads over 434.6 square kilometres. Malsian, the tehsil's railway village, lies just off the highway.

ਇਤਿਹਾਸ

Shahkot grew as a market town on the southern road out of Jalandhar, serving the villages along the Doaba's southern edge. Its rise to administrative importance came when it was made a tehsil and subdivision headquarters, bringing government offices, courts and a busy grain market to what had been a country town. A nagar panchayat (town municipal council) runs the town today, and its grain market, courts and offices make it the place the surrounding villages come to for business and official work. Its courts and tehsil offices draw villagers from across the subdivision for land records, certificates and legal work. Like much of the Doaba, Shahkot's modern story is also the story of migration, generations of its families have gone abroad for work, and money sent home shows in the town's schools, markets and new housing colonies.

The chilli town

Ask a Punjabi what Shahkot is famous for and the answer comes back at once: red chillies. Shahkot's red chilli peppers are known across the state, and in the drying season the town's rooftops turn red with chillies laid out to dry in the sun, the sight the town is known by. The chilli trade feeds a busy mandi, traders from across the Doaba come to the town in the chilli season, and Shahkot also has a large number of rice mills, making it a milling centre for the paddy grown in the surrounding villages.

Geography & people

Shahkot stands at about 31.08°N 75.34°E, at an elevation of roughly 210 metres, and the town covers about 16.27 square kilometres. The 2011 census counted 14,488 people in the town, up from 12,607 in 2001, while the wider tehsil held 166,532. Hindus and Sikhs are the predominant communities. The everyday language is Doabi Punjabi. The PIN code is 144702, the telephone code 01821, and vehicles carry PB67 registration.

Notable people

Shahkot's best-known export may be its music. The singer Master Saleem belongs to the town, he is the son of Puran Shahkoti, the music teacher who trained singers including Hans Raj Hans and Jasbir Jassi. The folk singer Barkat Sidhu is said to have spent his childhood in Kania Kalan, a village near Shahkot. In sport, the town remembers Mehardin, a celebrated kushti pehlwan whose dangals drew crowds across the Doaba.

Getting there & today

Shahkot sits on NH-703, so buses and cars reach it easily from Jalandhar and Moga. State transport and private buses run the Jalandhar–Moga route through the day. The nearest railway station is Malsian Shahkot (station code MQS) on the Shahkot–Moga road, under the Firozpur division of Northern Railway, where Lohian Khas–Ludhiana passenger trains halt. The nearest airport is Ludhiana's Sahnewal airport, about 67 km away; Amritsar's international airport is the next option. The town has a cluster of schools, State Public School, Ramgarhia Public School, St. Manu's and St. Jude's convent schools among them, serving the town and its villages. Today Shahkot is a working tehsil town: mandi trade by day, chilli-red rooftops in season, and the offices and courts that keep the subdivision running. The town lends its name to the Shahkot assembly constituency, one of Punjab's 117.