Electricity Demand to Reach Record Level for Paddy Season

May

2026

Panjab's electricity demand is projected to increase by 6% and reach a record level of over 18K MW with the paddy season scheduled from 1 Jun. Every paddy season, over 1.4M tubewells pump out gallons of water to irrigate fields—with the majority of these borewells located in the districts whose water table is already overexploited. Every tube well pumps out 3M liters of water per week with an average eight hours of power supply. This means that around 1.4M tube wells pump out 4,385B litres of water per week. A recent report submitted by an expert committee to the National Green Tribunal suggests that if paddy transplantation is delayed by a week—as provided for by the Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, 2009—the state can meet the demand for water of its 30M population for more than 3.5 years. However, the Panjab government waived the Act in 2025 and also in 2026. Despite advice by experts, Panjab continues to allow paddy sowing beginning June as opposed to the end of June when the monsoon is about to commence. Furthermore, the state government has decided to expand its maize promotion policy in 2024 to around 20K hectares. Experts argue that the numbers remain too small for any real impact in Panjab where paddy dominates the agricultural landscape. In 2025, the government had launched a pilot project to encourage farmers to shift from paddy to maize on 12K hectares which has been increased to 20K hectares for the current season. The agriculture department has also set an overall target of bringing 125K hectares under cotton—also an alternative to paddy—roughly 6K hectares more than the 2025–26 season. Meanwhile, as the wheat procurement season nears its end, an analysis suggests that while total arrivals in grain markets have declined compared to 2025, government agencies have stepped in to compensate for a sharp drop in private trade participation. In May 2025, Panjab had recorded total wheat arrivals of around 13 MMT. Whereas, by 6 May 2026, arrivals stood at around 12.2 MMT, showing a decline of nearly 6%. Data suggests that government procurement has actually surpassed last year’s level despite lower arrivals, while private trade participation has collapsed by nearly 86–87% (earlier coverage).