Haryana, Cut Out of Punjab on 1 November 1966 as a State of Seven Districts, Reached a Per Capita Income of Rs 3.57 Lakh in 2023-24 Against Rs 1.89 Lakh for India

Haryana’s per capita income was Rs 3,56,829 in 2023-24, against Rs 1,88,892 for India as a whole, according to an October 2025 brief from the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) that draws on the Ministry of Statistics’ estimates. The state covers 44,212 square kilometres, held 2,53,51,462 people at the 2011 Census and has existed only since 1 November 1966.

Census figures here are from 2011, the last completed count. The ongoing census has a reference date of 1 March 2027, according to PRS Legislative Research.

How Haryana came to exist

The Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 (Act 31 of 1966), dated 18 September 1966, set 1 November 1966 as the “appointed day”. On that day section 3 formed Haryana out of the existing State of Punjab. It took the districts of Hissar, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Karnal and Mahendragarh, the Narwana and Jind tehsils (revenue subdivisions) of Sangrur district, the Ambala, Jagadhari and Naraingarh tehsils of Ambala district, and parts of Kharar tehsil. The Narwana and Jind territory became a separate district, and so did the Ambala territory, so the new state began with seven districts.

The same Act formed Chandigarh as a union territory in section 4 and added Punjab’s hill districts of Simla, Kangra, Kulu and Lahaul and Spiti to Himachal Pradesh in section 5. Haryana was allotted nine Lok Sabha seats, two of them reserved for Scheduled Castes, under section 23, and an Assembly of 54 seats under section 13.

The map has been redrawn inside the state since. The Kurukshetra district administration’s history records that Bhiwani and Sonipat were created on 22 December 1972, and Kurukshetra, cut out of Karnal, on 23 January 1973. The state portal now counts 22 districts, 140 blocks and 7,356 villages, with a literacy rate of 75.55 percent.

How Haryana is governed

Article 168 of the Constitution makes each state’s legislature the Governor plus one House or two, and the clause naming the states with two Houses does not include Haryana. Its legislature is therefore the Governor and a single House, the Vidhan Sabha (Legislative Assembly).

The Election Commission’s release of 16 August 2024 puts the Vidhan Sabha at 90 seats. Seventy-three are general, 17 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and none for Scheduled Tribes. The roll for that election listed 2,03,00,255 electors, including 1,10,071 service voters. Under Article 172, an Assembly lasts five years from its first meeting unless dissolved earlier, and the release gives the term of the previous Assembly as 4 November 2019 to 3 November 2024.

The Assembly sits in Chandigarh, in the Vidhan Bhawan of the Capitol Complex, which was inaugurated on 15 April 1964 and houses Punjab’s Assembly as well. The Vidhan Sabha’s own page says the Haryana chamber sits under a pyramidal roof in the south-east of the building, and that the chamber once used by the Punjab Legislative Council was adapted for the Haryana Assembly.

In Parliament, Haryana has 10 Lok Sabha seats, the figure PRS lists from the allocation fixed on the 1971 census, and five Rajya Sabha seats under the Fourth Schedule. Section 29 of the 1966 Act created a common High Court for Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, which sits at Chandigarh.

The Haryana Official Language Act, 1969 made Hindi in the Devanagari script the language for the state’s official purposes from 26 January 1969, with exceptions the government may notify. A 2004 amendment (Act 30 of 2004, assented to on 14 December 2004) added Punjabi in Gurmukhi script as a second language for purposes the government specifies by notification. The gazette text of a 2020 amendment (Act 13 of 2020) adds a section 3A on the use of Hindi in the civil and criminal courts below the High Court, revenue courts and tribunals.

What the economy runs on

PRS puts Haryana’s gross state domestic product (GSDP, the value of everything the state produces in a year) at Rs 12,23,904 crore in 2024-25 at current prices, and projects Rs 15,18,223 crore for 2026-27. In 2024-25, PRS reports, services made up 54 percent of output, manufacturing 28 percent and agriculture 18 percent.

NCAER puts the state’s share of India’s nominal GDP at 3.6 percent in 2023-24, up from 2.7 percent in 1990-91, while the state holds 2.1 percent of the country’s population on the 2024 projection. It also reports Haryana’s exports at about 4.0 percent of India’s and its inflow of foreign direct investment at 4.3 percent of India’s in 2023-24.

Gurugram district, about 30 kilometres south of Delhi, is the best-known address of the service economy. The district administration describes it as a hub of multinational companies, call centres and software firms. NCAER’s reading of the 2023-24 labour force survey puts 42.7 percent of workers in services, 27.5 percent in agriculture and 18.3 percent in manufacturing, so farming employs a larger share of people than its 18 percent share of output.

The farm sector feeds the national food stock. The Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution told the Lok Sabha on 6 August 2025, as The Tribune reported, that Haryana supplied 71.50 lakh tonnes of wheat to the central pool in 2024-25 and 84.93 lakh tonnes in 2021-22. The district administration calls Kurukshetra, Karnal and Kaithal the “Rice Bowl of India”, known for basmati. The wider story of the wheat and rice belt is in the piece on Swaminathan and the Green Revolution.

On the public accounts, PRS shows a fiscal deficit of 2.7 percent of GSDP in the 2026-27 budget, below the 3 percent ceiling the Sixteenth Finance Commission recommends for states from 2026 to 2031. Outstanding liabilities are estimated at 25.8 percent of GSDP at the end of 2026-27.

What sets Haryana apart

Kurukshetra, the field named in the first verse of the Bhagavad Gita as Dharmakshetra Kurukshetra, is a district of Haryana. The district administration states that the battle of the Mahabharata was fought on this land and that Krishna gave Arjuna the teaching on karma at Jyotisar. The tradition counts a pilgrimage land of 48 kos around it, a traditional measure of distance, with many sacred ponds and temples.

A national campaign began in the state too. The Prime Minister launched Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save the Daughter, Educate the Daughter) at Panipat on 22 January 2015, and the Press Information Bureau says it aims to address the falling child sex ratio. By the Bureau’s figures the national sex ratio at birth rose from 918 in 2014-15 to 930 in 2023-24.

Sport is the third distinction. The Tribune reported on 19 August 2024 that 25 sportspersons from Haryana competed at the Paris Olympics and seven won medals. The state sports policy sets maximum cash awards of Rs 6 crore for gold, Rs 4 crore for silver and Rs 2.5 crore for bronze. The state paid Manu Bhaker Rs 5 crore for two bronze medals, Neeraj Chopra Rs 4 crore for his silver, and Rs 2.5 crore each to five other medallists in shooting, wrestling and hockey.

Two questions Haryana shares with Punjab

Chandigarh is the capital of both states while being a union territory run by the Centre, and its future has been disputed since 1966. The Chandigarh profile sets out each side. On 1 April 2022 the Punjab Vidhan Sabha passed a resolution seeking its transfer to Punjab. The Haryana Vidhan Sabha answered on 5 April 2022 with a unanimous resolution, as The Tribune reported, that called the transfer unacceptable to the people of Haryana, kept Haryana’s claim to the joint capital and asked that Haryana’s share of officials there continue.

The same resolution asked for the Satluj-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal to be completed. An agreement of 31 December 1981 among Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan reallocated the Ravi and Beas waters and provided for the canal. The Supreme Court directed Punjab on 15 January 2002, in Haryana’s suit, to finish its stretch within a year, and dismissed Punjab’s own suit on 4 June 2004. Punjab then passed a law on 12 July 2004 ending its water agreements, and the President asked the Court for its opinion.

A five-judge bench answered all the questions in the negative on 10 November 2016. Punjab’s counsel had argued that the flow of water had fallen and that a tribunal should look again at the shares. Haryana’s counsel had argued that a state cannot cancel a court’s decree by passing a law. The explainer on river water disputes places the case in the wider system.

What comes next

The Central Ground Water Board’s December 2024 assessment puts Haryana’s groundwater extraction at 12.72 billion cubic metres a year against an extractable 9.36 billion, a stage of extraction of 135.96 percent, with 88 of 143 assessment units over-exploited. Its recommendations include diversifying farmers away from paddy and other water-intensive crops.

NCAER’s brief also lists two gaps. The sex ratio at birth was 893 in the 2019 to 2021 National Family Health Survey, against 929 nationally, and the female labour force participation rate was 24.2 percent in 2023-24, against 41.7 percent for India.

On seats, the Constitution counts population as of 1971 for the Lok Sabha, and Article 82 says no readjustment is needed until figures from the first census after 2026 are published. PRS’s April 2026 table projects Haryana at 11 seats if the House stayed at 543 and was divided by 2011 population, and at 17 if the House grew by half. The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, one of three bills introduced on 16 April 2026 to enable delimitation on the 2011 census, was defeated in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026 by 298 votes to 230, short of the two-thirds majority it needed. The guide to Lok Sabha seats and the freeze follows the arithmetic.