Punjab is making a bold, ₹5,000-crore bet that chronic power cuts are a thing of the past. The Chief Minister's Office of Punjab announced on Tuesday, 29 September 2026 that the state government has launched Roshan Punjab — a grid-modernisation programme designed to deliver 24x7 uninterrupted, high-quality electricity to every corner of the state.

What Roshan Punjab promises — and why the number matters

The programme's centrepiece is a capital investment the government describes as 'unprecedented' for Punjab's power sector. At ₹5,000 crore, the outlay signals a shift from patch-and-repair thinking to a wholesale transformation of the state's electricity distribution infrastructure. The stated goal — round-the-clock, uninterrupted supply — is one that Punjab households, farmers dependent on reliable irrigation pumps, and industrial units have chased for decades without success.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who has led Punjab's Aam Aadmi Party government since March 2022, has framed reliable power as a cornerstone of the government's service-delivery pitch. Roshan Punjab — meaning 'Illuminated Punjab' — carries that political promise in its name.

From UDAY to Roshan Punjab: a long road to the grid

Punjab is no stranger to state-level power schemes. The state participated in the central government's UDAY (Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) scheme, launched in 2015, which targeted financial health of power distribution companies and aimed to reduce transmission losses. That framework laid some groundwork, but chronic outages — particularly in summer peak-demand months — persisted for agriculture-heavy and industrial belts alike.

Roshan Punjab now attempts to go further: grid modernisation, network strengthening, and smart infrastructure investment that UDAY's financial restructuring alone could not deliver. The pattern fits a broader national trend, where states periodically announce large capital outlays to tackle distribution-level failures that central schemes soften but rarely solve entirely.

The three constituencies watching this programme most closely

Punjab's farming community — one of the state's most politically powerful constituencies — depends on consistent electricity for tubewells and irrigation, especially during the wheat and paddy sowing seasons. Industrial units across the state's manufacturing belt, and urban and rural households across 22 districts, round out the stakeholders who will measure Roshan Punjab not by its launch but by what they see on their meters. The real test will arrive in phased rollout timelines, equipment procurement, and measurable reductions in outage frequency reported by the state's distribution company over the next 12 to 24 months.

Punjab has named the problem with clarity and written a large cheque. Whether the grid lights up to match the promise is the question every household in the state will answer from their own living room.