THERE was a time when Punjab symbolised prosperity. The land of five rivers not only inherited greatness, it also earned it through enterprise, sacrifice and an unshakeable belief in its future. The overwhelming mandate for change in 2022 today feels increasingly distant.
Punjab finds itself under mounting fiscal pressure, rising security concerns, weakening industrial confidence and an economy still searching for direction. The promise of transformation has steadily given way to the reality of drift.
In 1993, Punjab ranked third among Indian states in per capita income. Today, at least 15 states have overtaken it. This deterioration has been long in the works. The average GSDP growth from 1991-92 to 1995-96 was 4.36 per cent. While other major states rode the wave of liberalisation and grew their per capita income, between 2001-02 and 2005-06, its average GSDP growth fell to 4.34 per cent. Since then, the averages have grown but not at a rate required for faster growth.
The numbers tell an equally sobering story. Today, Punjab’s per capita income is 106.7 per cent of the national average, placing it behind 17 states and union territories.
Most strikingly, Haryana, carved out of Punjab in 1966, now stands at 176.8 per cent of the national average. This highlights how far Punjab has slipped from its position as one of India’s most prosperous states.
Consider the ledger. Punjab’s debt has risen from Rs 2.83 lakh crore, when the AAP inherited power in 2022, to a projected Rs 4.17 lakh crore.
More worrying is how that borrowed money is now being used, with a debt-to-GSDP ratio of nearly 46 per cent, against Haryana’s 25.5 per cent. The state currently has the highest per capita debt in the country at Rs 1.23 lakh per citizen.
This essentially means that from every Rs 100 taken, Rs 35 goes in clearing the old liabilities and Rs 50 goes towards interest payments. This leaves merely Rs 15 for the state’s productive investments, of which, Punjab is spending only 3.9 per cent on capital expenditure. The bulk of the state’s revenue receipts is consumed by salaries, pensions, interest and subsidies. There is little left to build anything.
A government that cannot fund a school or a road on its own income is not governing a state; it is managing a slow bankruptcy with a smile.
And what of the promises made to the people in their hour of hope? The women of Punjab — thebibis and dhiyan who form the spine of every household — were told they would receive Rs 1,000 every month. They waited one year, then two, then three, then four. The scheme finally found place in the March 2026 Budget, with payments timed to begin as the 2027 election heaves into view. Four years of silence, and then a largesse, precisely when votes are needed.
To call this welfare is an insult; it is electoral arithmetic wearing the mask of empathy. The women were not served. They were strung along.
Then there is the wound that bleeds without pause. Udta Punjab was once a film’s subject; it is now a daily obituary. Bhagwant Mann and his Delhi mentors thundered across the state, promising a nasha-mukt Punjab within four months. The slogan went up on every wall; the chitta kept coming anyway. Drug-related deaths climbed: from 89 in 2023 to 106 in 2024. Punjab topped the country’s drug overdose charts. Punjab increasingly risks acquiring the reputation of a narcotics hub, a fertile land hollowed out by a narcotics economy it cannot escape.
Punjab has seen more than 30 grenade and explosive attacks on police posts since September 2024, with ISI-backed modules and a revived gangster-terror nexus, handlers operating from across the border and extremist elements within the overseas diaspora working to keep this strategically vital state unsettled.
Meanwhile, Punjab’s industrial engine sputters. Ludhiana, dubbed ‘the Manchester of India’, watches opportunity slip away. It is not that investors have stopped investing; they are simply investing elsewhere.
Capital follows stability, policy certainty, efficient governance and investor confidence. States like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have become magnets by creating that environment. Investors do not move out due to sentiment, they move towards certainty, and that is precisely what Punjab’s investment ambience is failing to attract.
West Bengal, too, once India’s industrial and intellectual crown, was talked into a slow, ideological decline that took a generation to even recognise. Punjab is being walked down that same road. The conviction it took Bengal to finally demand a different future is the conviction Punjab needs now, before another decade is lost.
This is not a plea for pity. Punjab has never asked for pity and should never do it. It is a plea for recognition, that this land of sarbat da bhala, of Guru Nanak’s seva and the Green Revolution’s audacity, of rangla Punjab, deserves far better than the managed decline it has been subjected to.
The chardi kala still smoulders in every Punjabi heart. What is missing is not the people. It is governance that is worthy of the Punjabis.