The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has asked the Department of Rural Development and Panchayats, Panjab to clear outstanding dues of USD 135M. The AAP government passed the orders despite the arrears being waived off by the previous Indian National Congress government under Charanjit Singh Channi. The then Panjab Cabinet had also reduced the water supply bill from USD 1.6 (INR 166) to USD 0.54 (INR 50) per month per household and stated that the pending dues would be cleared by the state government. Channi has appealed to village councils to not return the dues. In a similar move, AAP has revived boards for the welfare of different castes, besides constituting new ones for various social castes such as goldsmiths, Arora Khatris and Sufi Sant Samaj. Most of these boards were constituted by the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party led government in the last leg of their 2012–17 tenure. The boards remained dormant after the alliance lost the state elections. Meanwhile, a delegation of the Punjab State Electricity Board Engineers Association (PSEBEA), led by its president Joginder Singh Dhiman, finally met the Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on 22 Jan to discuss the grievances of engineers and employees of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL). The meeting assumes importance as engineers and employees of PSPCL have been on an agitation since November 2025. According to association members, the suspension of Harish Sharma, Chief Engineer of the Ropar and Goindwal Sahib Thermal Plant, was discussed in detail during the meeting. His suspension, along with the termination of services of Harjeet Singh, Director (Generation), had triggered widespread resentment among engineers. Employees have been alleging political interference in the functioning of PSPCL, which they argue is an autonomous body and should be allowed to operate independently on professional lines. Concurrently, on the call of the Ministerial Services Union State Committee, ministerial employees in Amritsar staged a protest against the state government over the non-fulfillment of their long-pending demands. District chief spokesperson Tejinder Singh Dhillon said ministerial employees had been consistently demanding the release of pending Dearness Allowance (to mitigate rising costs) installments, which have been delayed for a long time (earlier coverage).
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