It looks like another scam is quietly brewing in Punjab, this time under the polished title of “maintenance” of 19,000 kilometers of road repairs. On the surface, it sounds like a responsible governance measure — ensuring that repaired roads are properly maintained for the next five years. But when you dig deeper, it appears to be another case of misusing public money under the guise of accountability.
Instead of holding contractors responsible for the quality and longevity of their own work — as is the norm in most states — the Punjab government is reportedly paying them an additional 10% as a so-called “5-year maintenance warranty.” In other words, the contractors are being rewarded in advance to maintain what they were already supposed to build properly in the first place.
For instance, a contractor tasked with repairing just 400 meters of road is said to be receiving ₹1.65 lakh extra merely for “maintaining” it over five years. Such figures may appear small in isolation, but when multiplied across the state’s 19,000 kilometers of road network, the total amount of public funds being disbursed without accountability becomes massive.
Sources within the Punjab Mandi Board have revealed that this 10% extra allocation is not just for genuine maintenance but is allegedly being diverted to benefit politically connected individuals — including Mandi Board chairpersons and officials. This raises serious concerns about corruption, kickbacks, and the misuse of taxpayer money under the pretext of infrastructure improvement.
If true, this scheme reflects not innovation in governance but innovation in corruption — a new method of distributing funds to political allies while presenting it as a public welfare measure. The people of Punjab deserve transparency, not cleverly disguised scams in the name of development.