Punjab under Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has entered its third year with a mixed report card that reflects both notable achievements and painful failures. On the one hand, the government has been able to project a reformist image, especially in the fields of school education, healthcare, and rural development. On the other hand, the situation in higher education, public finances, and farmer welfare reveals a deepening crisis that has become the subject of growing unrest across the state.
In education, the turnaround at the school level has been widely appreciated. Punjab has climbed from a low 29th position in the National Achievement Survey in 2017 to the top rank in 2024. Government school students are performing better in competitive examinations such as NEET and JEE, and new initiatives like sending seventy-two teachers to Finland for training have been viewed as a sign that the state is investing in long-term capacity building. These reforms have helped strengthen public confidence in government schools at a time when private education has been a drain on household incomes.
Healthcare is another sector where the Mann government has claimed success. The establishment of more than eight hundred “Aam Aadmi Clinics,” which have already served over three crore patients, has provided a significant cushion for ordinary families who earlier depended on expensive private care. These clinics have collectively saved citizens over twelve hundred crore rupees in out-of-pocket expenses. The government has also announced the construction of four new medical colleges and is preparing to launch the “Mukh Mantri Sehat Yojana” from October 2025, which will provide ten lakh rupees of free treatment to every family in Punjab. This is being described as the most ambitious health scheme in the state’s history.
The rural economy too has seen some improvements, particularly in irrigation and electricity supply. Nearly sixteen thousand water channels have been revived, and irrigation coverage in tail-end villages has expanded dramatically from twenty-one to sixty-three percent. Within three months of taking office, the government provided free electricity to ninety percent of households, a measure that immediately reduced the burden on farmers and small families. The acquisition of the Goindwal Sahib thermal plant at just over one thousand crore rupees—against its estimated value of six thousand crore—was presented as an example of prudent economic management.
Yet these welfare initiatives have collided head-on with the reality of Punjab’s fiscal distress. Debt has ballooned to alarming levels, averaging more than thirty-three thousand crore rupees annually under the present government compared to around twenty thousand crore in the previous decade. Almost forty-one percent of state revenues are now being consumed by debt servicing, with nearly twenty-four thousand crore paid in interest and almost thirteen thousand crore in principal repayments during 2024–25 alone. The fiscal deficit stands at 3.8 percent of Gross State Domestic Product, amounting to more than thirty thousand crore rupees, while the revenue deficit has crossed twenty-three thousand crore. Punjab’s debt-to-GSDP ratio has now touched a dangerous 44.1 percent, leaving little space for genuine development expenditure.
This financial strain has been further aggravated by widespread farmer unrest. Farmer leaders continue to demand a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price on all crops, a promise that has not been delivered. “We won’t stop our struggle until MSP is legally funded for all crops,” declared union leader Sarwan Singh Pandher. Anger has deepened in flood-affected areas, where farmers are seeking a special package of fifty thousand crore rupees from the Centre and at least fifty thousand rupees compensation per acre of damaged crop. Many feel that the government has failed to respond adequately to this crisis, which has become both an economic and humanitarian concern.
The education sector has, however, emerged as the single largest flashpoint for the Mann government. The Supreme Court quashed the recruitment of 1,158 assistant professors and librarians, ruling that the process was arbitrary and not aligned with University Grants Commission norms. These educators—many with PhDs or NET qualifications who had already joined their posts—now face sudden unemployment and an uncertain future. Students and institutions, which had only just begun to rebuild academic strength, have once again been left in the lurch. Members of the “1158 Assistant Professors and Librarians Front” have held protest marches, hunger strikes, and rallies, demanding that the government file a review petition so that their appointments can be restored. They insist that they are victims of procedural errors for which they cannot be blamed. In response, the Punjab government has petitioned the Supreme Court seeking temporary retention of these educators in the interest of students, but the uncertainty continues to cause turmoil on campuses.
Guest faculty members, who had been displaced when the 1,158 professors were appointed, are also caught in the storm. Many have not been paid their salaries for months despite carrying the same teaching load as regular professors. They are demanding pending salaries, fair treatment, and a clear pathway toward regularization. The dispute has revealed systemic inadequacies in higher education governance and left both teachers and students in a state of anxiety.
Computer teachers in government schools face similar challenges. Hired under the PICTES scheme, they are recognized as government employees and entitled to Punjab Civil Services benefits, yet their salaries are routinely delayed, sometimes for months at a stretch. These teachers are demanding timely disbursal of wages, implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission, full civil service integration, and job security for family members of deceased employees. Their agitation reflects the broader gap between promises of an “education revolution” and the lived experience of educators on the ground.
The political atmosphere has been further vitiated by the circulation of a video featuring former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, in which he appears to promise the use of inducements, punishments, and other questionable tactics to secure electoral victory. For critics, this video confirmed fears that Punjab is being used as a laboratory for political experiments driven by Delhi rather than a state being governed with sincerity toward its people.
Altogether, the Mann government’s record is one of contrasts. On the positive side, there have been significant strides in school education, healthcare access, rural infrastructure, and direct engagement with citizens. Yet the government’s credibility is undermined by a mounting debt crisis, farmer distress, and the paralysis in higher education where professors, librarians, guest faculty, and computer teachers have become symbols of broken promises. The balance sheet of achievements and failures suggests that while the government has succeeded in projecting an image of reform, it now faces the harder test of delivering stability, fairness, and sustainability. Ultimately, the future of Punjab will depend on whether these promises are matched with the courage and capacity to implement lasting solutions.