Why good policies fail in Punjab: A governance blueprint every aspirant bureaucrat must understand

Anyone preparing for the civil services in Punjab doesn’t need a lecture to understand administrative collapse; they live in the middle of it. It shows up in depleted tubewells, stubble smoke, polluted canals, cancer-ridden districts and villages struggling with contaminated water. India is full of well-crafted policies yet they routinely fail because the institutions meant to deliver them are too fragmented, too slow, too outdated and too weak.

For a future bureaucrat, the real challenge is not understanding policy intent but understanding why intent evaporates on the ground. Punjab’s governance breakdown offers a clear, honest view into what is broken across India and what must be rebuilt.

The problem: Good policy, collapsing execution

Punjab has policies for groundwater conservation, crop diversification, stubble management, cancer control and pesticide regulation. The problem is not vision. The problem is execution entering a maze of outdated administrative pipes.

1. Fragmented authority that paralyses action

Groundwater governance is the sharpest example. Punjab extracts far more water than it recharges and most blocks are over-exploited. Not because the state lacks data or understanding, but because power is scattered across multiple departments, none with clear, enforceable authority.

Illegal borewells survive in the gaps. Over-extraction becomes normal. Contamination spreads unchecked.

This same fragmentation exists in pesticide regulation, pollution control and waste management. When no one “owns” the problem, the problem expands.

2. Regulators with monitoring power but no teeth

Pollution Control Boards across India, including Punjab’s, can conduct inspections, sample emissions and send notices. But they cannot seal factories, seize assets or enforce penalties without navigating long bureaucratic chains.

The outcome is predictable: industries pollute, delay, appeal, negotiate and continue business as usual. Monitoring becomes ceremonial.

3. Stubble burning: Technology without governance muscle

Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have satellites, reporting systems and subsidy schemes. Yet fires return each year because identification does not translate into action. There is no single empowered authority to respond instantly.

Some years look “better” only because reporting is partial or politically influenced. Farmers burn because alternatives, including residue pickup, predictable pricing, assured markets, simply do not exist. No behaviour changes when the system fails to provide a viable path.

4. Enforcement without alternatives doesn’t work

Farmers do not overuse groundwater because they want to. They do it because diversification lacks secure markets.

They do not choose hazardous pesticides because they enjoy risk. They do it because scientific advisory systems are weak and safer alternatives are inaccessible.

Industries do not deliberately pollute rivers; they do so because compliant treatment facilities are expensive or unavailable.

People choose harmful practices only when the state fails to build functional alternatives. The solution: A new governance architecture for a new India

We must redesign the administrative machinery, not merely add new schemes. Modern challenges require institutions capable of real-time coordination, fast decision-making, digital evidence and credible enforcement.

Here’s the governance model that an aspirant bureaucrat must understand

1. State Natural Resources Regulatory Commission: One authority, clear mandates

A single empowered regulator can replace fragmented governance.

This body would consolidate:

• groundwater regulation

• soil health

• agro-chemical oversight

• environmental compliance

What it must include:

• Field enforcement units: Trained teams that seal illegal borewells, inspect factories, verify stubble fires and collect tamper-proof digital evidence.

• District regulation offices: Staffed with hydrologists, toxicologists, ecologists, data analysts and legal experts who can act quickly on field evidence.

• An apex commission: A body that sets extraction caps, bans hazardous chemicals, prosecutes violators and publishes real-time public dashboards.

Monitoring should finally mean enforcement and enforcement must create deterrence.

2. State Agro-Environmental Safety Authority: Fix pesticide misuse at the root

Punjab needs digital traceability across every pesticide batch.

• barcode-based tracking

• automated recall systems

• strict dealer licensing

• state-wide alerts when contamination is detected

This cuts out black markets, removes hazardous stock instantly, and protects both farmers and consumers. States like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh can follow the same model.

3. State Integrated Rural-Urban Resilience Mission

Punjab’s problems don’t fit inside departmental walls.

Sewage from towns contaminates rural rivers. Crop residue smoke travels into cities.

Industrial effluents seep into village aquifers.

A unified mission should integrate:

• municipalities

• agriculture

• environment

• water supply

• public health

This ensures joint action, shared data, and coordinated responses — something the current

system cannot deliver.

4. Finance the reforms Through leakages, not new taxes

Rebuilding governance doesn’t require new money — just recovery of what leaks out.

• illegal borewell closures save power and water

• digital crop-loss verification eliminates ghost claims

• pesticide tracking ruins black markets

• automated stubble penalties increase compliance

• digital water meters ensure industries pay for extraction

A Governance Transformation Fund can be created from these recovered revenues, making reforms self-financing.

The courage India needs from its future bureaucrats

Punjab’s distress mirrors the failures of Maharashtra, Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The issues are not unique. They are structural. India’s real deficit is not policy but institutional capacity.

For a future bureaucrat, the lesson is stark: Your job is no longer to write policies; your job is to build systems that make policies work.

Punjab can become the test-bed for a new administrative architecture — digital, unified and capable of real enforcement. If the state reforms its governance model, others will follow.

The country moves when its institutions move and those institutions depend on the officers who run them.

The real question is not whether India has the right ideas.

It does.

The question is whether its next generation of administrators will have the courage to rebuild the machinery that turns ideas into outcomes.

The writer is Professor, School of Management Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala