My home town, Kotkapura

My home town, Kotkapura is a historic city, around 50 km from Bhatinda, in the state of Punjab, India. It is the largest city in the Faridkot District and used to have one of the largest cotton markets in India. Though now the cotton traders have diversified into various other businesses.

Kotkapura takes its name from its founder, Nawab Kapura Singh, and the word "kot", meaning a small fort – literally the "fort of Kapura".

It takes around 5 hours (around 220 km) by bus from Chandigarh and 2.5 hours (around 110 km) from Ludhiana to reach the city. Kotkapura has direct railway link to major cities of India such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Agra etc.
As of the 2001 Indian census, Kotkapura has a population of 80,741. Males constitute 53% of the population and females 47%. Alternatively, Kotkapura has a population of 128,000, not included in earlier figure as additional population is floating population due to seasonal work demands in the cotton market and fields.

Kotkapura is also famous for the Ram Bag Garden ("Garden of Lord Ram") and the Shastri Market, one of the most populous and largest markets in the Punjab. Kotkapura is also renowned for a famous sweet, "Dhodha".

Faridkot is a little smaller than Kotkapura but due to existing infrastructure of erstwhile Fardikot Riyasat, it got to be the district headquarters under the rule of Giani Zail Singh as the Chief Minister of Punjab, who became President of India in 1982.

Former president of India and CM of Punjab, Giani Zail ji belong to Sandhwan village, which is located 4 km from Kotkapura. Kotkapura is also famous for its ever-closed railway crossing gate on the Kotkapura–Muktsar road. However, a much-delayed flyover has saved the town from this notorious landmark.

For more details and history of Kotkapura: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotkapura