Samrala and its district
Samrala is a town and administrative centre in Ludhiana district in Indian Punjab. The district administration lists Samrala among its tehsils and identifies a sub-divisional magistrate there. A tehsil is an administrative area that includes more than the town sharing its name. Its boundary may change over time, so records from different years need to be compared carefully. A district directory also lists development offices for Samrala and Machhiwara separately. These offices are evidence of administrative organisation at the time of the listing, not a complete description of daily life in the area. The office appears alongside equivalent sub-divisional posts elsewhere in the same district listing.[1][4]
Changing boundaries in the 1990s
The 2001 Nawanshahr census handbook records transfers of villages to Samrala tehsil in 1995 as district boundaries were reorganised. It identifies villages transferred from areas that had been in Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur districts.[2]
A census table records an administrative decision; it does not mean that the villages themselves physically moved. This distinction matters for family and local-history research, because a document created before the transfer may use a different district name from a later one. The handbook is a dated record and should not be assumed to describe current boundaries without checking newer official information.[1]
Records of nearby Machhiwara
A 1961 Ludhiana district census handbook lists places of worship and monuments in the rural areas of Samrala tehsil, including gurdwaras and tombs at Machhiwara. The list records named sites within a historical administrative area; it does not place all of them in Samrala town itself. Machhiwara has its own community and religious histories. A census inventory can help locate a site for further research, but its condition, management and access may have changed since 1961. Local institutions, inscriptions and later surveys can supplement the handbook’s short entries.[3]
The 2011 census counted 19,678 people in Samrala municipal town.[5]
Sources & notes
Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.
- District Ludhiana. Sub Divisional Magistrate ↗Written source · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Samrala administrative office. Accessed 2026-11-03.District record, historical gazetteer or census inspected.Return to Samrala and its district, paragraph 1 ↑Return to Changing boundaries in the 1990s, paragraph 2 ↑
- Census of India. District Census Handbook: Nawanshahr, 2001 ↗Written source · Source date: 2007 · Locator: Printed p. 6 (PDF p. 33): 1995 village transfers to Samrala tehsil. Accessed 2026-11-04.The census handbook’s administrative-change table was inspected; original notification documents were not independently retrieved. The official census catalogue entry 44005 gives 2007 as publication year; the census series year is retained in the title.Return to Changing boundaries in the 1990s, paragraph 1 ↑
- Census of India. Ludhiana District census handbook, 1961 ↗Written source · Source date: 1965 · Locator: Sites in Samrala tehsil. Accessed 2026-11-04.District record, historical gazetteer or census inspected. The official census catalogue entry 29505 gives 1965 as publication year; the census series year is retained in the title.Return to Records of nearby Machhiwara, paragraph 1 ↑
- District Ludhiana. Directory ↗Written source · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Development and panchayat offices. Accessed 2026-11-03.District directory inspected.Return to Samrala and its district, paragraph 1 ↑
- Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Primary census abstract: Ludhiana district, 2011 ↗Written source · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: 2011 primary census abstract spreadsheet, Samrala (M Cl) TOWN row 222. Accessed 2026-11-04.Downloaded and inspected the specified official census spreadsheet row; the count is for the 2011 town unit, not a current estimate.Return to Records of nearby Machhiwara, paragraph 2 ↑
Record PH-PLA-0112 · English edition · human review not performed