Paragraph 1
There was an unmistakable edge to the proceedings inside the Punjab Vidhan Sabha as the Aam Aadmi Party government found itself facing some of its sharpest questions—not from the Opposition, but from its own side. In a democracy, the most uncomfortable moments often come when those closest to power turn their gaze inward and ask whether promises are actually being kept. That is precisely what unfolded when Jagraon MLA Saravjit Kaur Manuke rose to speak. She was not there to applaud the government or to celebrate its achievements; she was there to demand answers on behalf of her constituents, villagers, commuters, and families who had lost loved ones on roads that remained unfinished long after they were promised. Her target was the public works department, and her subject was a bitter, familiar grievance: three road projects, including the Guru Gobind Singh Marg, had been allotted in October 2023 but remained incomplete nearly three years later. For the people of her constituency, these were not abstract infrastructure projects. They were lifelines. The routes from Lakha to Manuke, the stretch of Guru Gobind Singh Marg, and the Raikot-Jagraon road were meant to ease travel, improve safety, and connect communities. Instead, they had become symbols of bureaucratic delay and administrative inertia. Manuke reminded the House that she had raised the issue three times already, and even summoned the minister’s secretaries before her committee on two occasions, seeking answers that never translated into action. Her frustration was not merely political; it was deeply personal, born out of repeated assurances followed by repeated disappointment. She wanted to know what action would be taken against the officials responsible for the delays and, more urgently, when these roads would finally be completed.
Paragraph 2
The human cost of those unfinished roads was what made Manuke’s intervention impossible to dismiss. Guru Gobind Singh Marg, she pointed out, had witnessed accidents and fatalities. Behind each statistic was a family shattered, a community grieving, and a promise that had come too late. When she argued that imposing a penalty on the contractor offered little consolation to the families who had lost their loved ones, she struck a chord that silenced the House. Public works department minister Harbhajan Singh ETO responded by acknowledging the delay, revealing that a 5% penalty amounting to Rs 51.24 lakh had been recovered from the contractor. He also reported that 74% of the work had been completed and promised that the remaining 26% would be finished by November 30. But for Manuke, that assurance rang hollow. She reminded the minister that on three previous occasions she had been given similar promises—that the roads would be completed within one month, then two months, then three. Each time, the deadline passed and the roads remained little more than half-finished stretches of dust and gravel. Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, sensing the tension, intervened and asked the minister to ensure that the MLA was not left disappointed again. The minister repeated his assurance, adding that departmental action would be taken against officials found responsible for the delays. Yet the underlying question remained: why did a project meant to serve the public take so long to move from paper to pavement? Why did an elected representative have to fight her own government for basic infrastructure? The exchange exposed a deeper flaw in governance—not a lack of planning, but a failure of follow-through. It also highlighted the importance of internal accountability. Had Manuke not persisted, the issue might have remained buried in official files. Instead, she forced the government to confront its own shortcomings in a public forum, proving that the assembly could still serve as a space for genuine scrutiny, even when the ruling party and the opposition benches belonged to the same political family.
Paragraph 3
The questioning continued with Mohali MLA Kulwant Singh, who turned the spotlight on an entirely different but equally troubling issue: the treatment of economically weaker patients in private hospitals. His concern was rooted in conditions imposed on hospitals that had been allotted land at reserve prices, dating back to allotment letters from 2000. Those letters, he said, came with obligations. Yellow-card holders and people belonging to economically weaker sections were entitled to free treatment, including 10% of outpatient department services and 5% of indoor treatment. These were not charitable suggestions; they were legal and administrative conditions attached to the allotment of public land at subsidised rates. By raising the issue, Kulwant Singh was asking a fundamental question: had the government ensured that private hospitals honoured their side of the bargain? He wanted to know how many patients had actually benefited from free or concessional treatment, and whether the government had any dedicated mechanism to regulate private hospitals and address complaints, including disputes over hospital bills. Health minister Dr Balbir Singh initially tried to deflect the issue by arguing that the allotment of land fell under the purview of Puda rather than the health department. But Kulwant Singh was not satisfied with a jurisdictional shuffle. He challenged the government more directly, asking whether incorrect information had been provided to the House. He asked the Speaker whether action could be taken in cases where members were deliberately given wrong information. His point was simple and powerful: the hospitals he referred to had been allotted land at reserve prices subject to specific conditions, and the government needed to establish whether those conditions had actually been honoured. Passing responsibility from one department to another was not an answer; it was an evasion.
Paragraph 4
Kulwant Singh’s intervention went beyond a single complaint. He called for legislation to establish a dedicated regulatory authority for private hospitals, arguing that without such a body, patients would continue to be deprived of facilities to which they were legally and morally entitled. It was a bold demand, particularly from a member of the ruling party, because it acknowledged that the current system was inadequate. Hospitals, left to self-regulate, could ignore their obligations with impunity. Patients, often vulnerable and unaware of their rights, had no effective channel to seek justice. The issue also prompted questions from Banga MLA Dr Sukhwinder Singh Sukhi, who raised concerns about the fees charged by hospitals established under the public-private partnership mode. He pointed out that charges for the same operation could vary substantially from one hospital to another, creating a bewildering and often exploitative landscape for patients. A procedure that cost one family a small fortune might be offered at a fraction of the price across town, yet there was no transparent standard to guide patients. Health minister Dr Balbir Singh responded by saying that discussions had been held with the Indian Medical Association and the Central government on the issue of regulating hospital charges. He suggested that hospitals should clearly display their fees, but he also conceded that a uniform system of regulation was not yet in place nationally. That admission was significant. It revealed that while legislators were pushing for accountability, the broader healthcare system remained fragmented, opaque, and resistant to reform. For ordinary citizens, the implications were serious. They could not trust that they were being treated and charged fairly. They could not assume that the law would protect them. And they could not turn to the government for swift intervention because the government itself had yet to build the institutional machinery needed to hold private healthcare providers accountable.
Paragraph 5
The session also turned to urban infrastructure, with Amritsar Central MLA Ajay Gupta questioning the delay in the construction of a multi-storey parking facility at Hall Bazaar’s Kairon Market in Amritsar. This was not a minor civic project; it was intended to ease congestion in one of the city’s busiest commercial areas. Anyone who has ever navigated the narrow, crowded lanes of Amritsar’s markets knows how suffocating the traffic can be. A multi-storey parking facility was meant to provide relief, allowing vehicles to be parked off the streets and giving pedestrians safer access to shops and businesses. Yet the project remained incomplete despite the passage of its original completion period. Minister Harjot Singh Bains explained that the site had faced delays because existing electrical infrastructure, including transformers and high- and low-tension panels, had to be cleared by the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited. He said the site was cleared in January 2026 and assured the House that the project would be completed by December 15, 2026. But Gupta wanted more than an assurance. He sought a guarantee that strict action would be taken if the contractor failed to meet the deadline. He also raised a pointed question: why had he, as the MLA representing the constituency, not been informed earlier about the infrastructure-related hurdles? It was a legitimate grievance. When elected representatives are kept in the dark, they cannot explain delays to their constituents. They cannot manage public expectations. And when the people eventually discover that a promised project is stuck because of technicalities, they lose faith not only in the contractor but in the entire democratic process. The issue was not really about electricity transformers or clearing sites. It was about communication, transparency, and respect for the public’s right to know.
Paragraph 6
Taken together, these exchanges painted a revealing portrait of governance in Punjab. The AAP government, which came to power on a wave of promises to transform the state, was being held to account by its own legislators in full view of the public. That was not a sign of weakness; it was a sign of political maturity. In many political parties, dissent is suppressed and uncomfortable questions are pushed under the carpet. But here, elected representatives stood up in the assembly and demanded accountability from their own government. They spoke about unfinished roads and fatal accidents, about hospitals that ignored the poor, about parking projects that remained incomplete, about officials who made promises they never kept. They spoke with the voice of the people who had sent them to the legislature, and their words carried the weight of lived experience. It would be easy to dismiss their interventions as grandstanding or internal politics, but that would be unfair. Saravjit Kaur Manuke was not seeking headlines; she was seeking justice for families who had lost loved ones on a dangerous, unfinished road. Kulwant Singh was not attacking the government for political gain; he was demanding that hospitals honour commitments they had made years ago in exchange for subsidised land. Ajay Gupta was not embarrassing the administration; he was trying to ensure that a public project promised to a commercial district would finally see the light of day. These were not trivial matters. They were the everyday concerns of ordinary people whose lives are shaped by the decisions of officials they never meet and processes they never understand. The challenge for the Punjab government, therefore, is not simply to meet the deadlines mentioned in the assembly. It is to build a culture of governance where commitments are kept, where actions follow words, and where accountability is not limited to speeches but embedded in practice. The road repairs, hospital regulations, and parking projects are important in themselves, but they are also symbols of something larger: the ability of democracy to respond to the needs of the people. If the government can deliver on these promises, it will strengthen not only its own credibility but also the public’s faith in democratic institutions. If it fails, the disappointment will not be limited to a few MLAs or ministers. It will be felt in every village, market, hospital, and street across Punjab.