Punjab is primarily an agrarian state, yet it has never had a comprehensive agricultural policy. The previous Congress-ruled government made an attempt to formulate one, but the draft never translated into a policy.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which came to power in 2022, made efforts towards this end, with an 11-member committee drafting the 200-page Punjab Agricultural Policy 2023 . This March, a 13-member Punjab Vidhan Sabha committee, led by its chairman, MLA Gurpreet Singh Banawali, examined the same policy and recommended its implementation. The committee also wrote to Punjab Chief Secretary, K A P Sinha, seeking its implementation.
This raises a larger question: if a policy has already been prepared by experts, submitted to the government, discussed with stakeholders, and subsequently examined by a legislative committee, why is Punjab still without a clear implementation road map? This assumes greater significance, with the government set to complete its term in a few months and Assembly elections round the corner.
The Punjab government constituted an 11-member Agricultural Policy Formulation Committee on January 13, 2023, under Sukhpal Singh, chairman of the Punjab State Farmers’ and Farm Workers’ Commission.
The committee included the current Chief Secretary K A P Sinha, then Special Chief Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare; Satbir Singh Gosal, Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University; Inderjeet Singh, Vice-Chancellor of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University; and agricultural and economic experts such as Sucha Singh Gill, B S Ghuman, Gurkanwal Singh, and Balwinder Singh Sidhu.
According to the Commission, around 1.02 lakh suggestions were received from different organisations and stakeholders, which were examined before the policy was prepared. The draft was submitted to the Punjab government on October 13, 2023. But implementation did not follow.
The Punjab Agriculture Policy 2023 goes beyond crop diversification: it addresses groundwater depletion, farm debt, farm incomes, insurance, labour, research, marketing, livestock, and horticulture.
Water and diversification: It targets At least 30% water saving initially, restricts long-duration paddy varieties and proposes stopping paddy cultivation in critically stressed areas, while promoting canal irrigation, micro-irrigation and water-saving technologies. It encourages alternatives to the wheat-paddy cycle, including cotton, maize, sugarcane, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, and horticulture, with timely canal water and improved cotton seeds in cotton-growing areas.
Debt, pension, and insurance: It proposes a one-time debt settlement, debt-swapping, and relief for small farmers, along with a Punjab-specific crop insurance scheme and fund, livestock insurance, and pension after 60 for farmers owning up to five acres and farm labourers.
Research, seeds, and markets: It proposes 13 Centres of Excellence, making Punjab a seed hub through region-specific clusters, continuous seed research, stronger agricultural research and extension, and market research institutions.
Cooperatives and rural economy: It seeks to strengthen 3,523 multi-purpose cooperative societies and promotes organic and natural farming, horticulture, livestock, dairy, mechanisation, women’s role in agriculture and modernisation of land-lease laws.
The policy also proposes measures aimed at reducing the government’s long-term financial burden. For instance, it recommends grid-connected solar systems for agricultural tubewells. The Commission told the Assembly committee that the scheme would require substantial initial investment but could recover its cost over time and subsequently generate revenue worth thousands of crores of rupees.
The policy also links water conservation with Punjab’s agricultural power subsidy burden, which was around Rs 8,000 crore, arguing that reducing groundwater extraction and promoting water-efficient agriculture could eventually reduce the state’s expenditure on subsidised farm power.
The issue received a fresh push from the Punjab Vidhan Sabha’s Committee on Agriculture and Allied Activities, headed by MLA Gurpreet Singh Banawali. The committee held 16 meetings before submitting its fourth report to the Assembly on March 12, 2026.
At its meeting on July 8, 2025, the committee heard representatives of the Commission about the policy and examined its recommendations. In the end, the committee unanimously recommended the policy’s implementation. Banawali indicated that the government need not implement Every recommendation simultaneously and that, if full implementation is not possible at once, it can be done in phases.
