Haryana

State of northwest India; area 44,222 sq km/17,074 sq mi; population (2001 est) 21,082,000. The capital is Chandigarh (also capital of Punjab state). The state lies on the Gangetic plain, drained by the Yamuna River. Chief industries are textiles, cement, iron ore, bicycles, farm machinery, and processing of agricultural products, especially cotton and sugar. Agriculture, employing more than three-quarters of the population, is based on wheat, sugar, cotton, oilseed, rice, maize, and pulses, and output increased considerably in the late 20th-century as a result of large-scale investment in irrigation.

The state was created in 1966 when Punjab state was divided on linguistic grounds into the Hindi-speaking Haryana (mainly Hindu) and the predominantly Sikh Punjabi-speaking Punjab (see Sikhism). The division of the Punjab followed demands by the Sikh Akali party for a Punjabi-speaking state, but it also met the wishes of the Hindi-speaking inhabitants for a ‘Greater Haryana’.

Haryana is a centre of Hinduism. The Grand Trunk Road (from Peshawar to Kolkata, formerly Calcutta) runs through it.

Modern agricultural methods Irrigation schemes benefit over two-thirds of the agricultural land, in particular the huge Bhakra Nangal river valley project in Punjab, the largest of its kind in Asia, which provides irrigation water for almost 700,000 ha/1.7 million acres. Wheat production has increased with new strains and greater application of fertilizer.