This paper analyzes how the district administration contributed to the administration of the settlement of the refugees in Punjab in the period between 1947 and 1950. It advances an argument that the practical center of refugee management during early Pakistan was district administration. It adopts a qualitative research design and utilizes secondary sources, which were founded on official documentation, rehabilitation records and refugee census files and historical literature. Policy was framed in provincial ministries and central authorities and converted into local action by district officials by the administration of camps, security, documentation, property custody, land allotment, urban rehabilitation and mediation of refugees and host society. The article also suggests that the work of the district administration in these years was influenced by a drastic lack of personnel, finances and facilities but the ability to improvise allowed the administration to shift towards emergency relief to more permanent types of settlement.