New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Punjab government on Friday admitted that one of its senior ministers, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, spent nearly 20 months presiding over a department that didn’t even exist.
Yes, you read that right—a phantom department, conjured up in name only, with no staff, no meetings, no programs, and apparently no one in the government sharp enough to notice until now.
This is not a satire; it’s the grim reality of governance under Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s watch.
The Department of Administrative Reforms, which Dhaliwal proudly held as part of his portfolio, was exposed as a mirage in a gazette notification issued on February 21, 2025.
For 20 months—nearly two years—this fifth-ranking minister in the Punjab Cabinet strutted around with the title, oblivious to the fact that his supposed domain was as real as a desert oasis.
No employees were assigned, no policies were debated, and no reforms were administered because, quite simply, there was nothing to administer.
The Punjab government, in a rare moment of candour, confessed that the department “is not in existence as of date,” leaving Dhaliwal with only his NRI Affairs portfolio to cling to.
This isn’t just a clerical error; it’s a damning indictment of a government that promised transparency, efficiency, and revolutionary change when it swept to power in 2022.
Instead, Punjab has been handed a circus where ministers oversee ghost departments while the state grapples with real crises—deportations, farmer unrest, and a crumbling law-and-order situation.
How does a government, led by a self-proclaimed “common man” like Mann, fail to notice for 20 months that one of its key portfolios is a fiction? Was no one curious why Dhaliwal’s Administrative Reforms office was as quiet as a graveyard? Or were they too busy posing for photo-ops with deportees at Amritsar airport to bother with basic governance?
The fallout is predictable but no less infuriating.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seized the opportunity, with spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari blasting AAP for turning Punjab’s governance into “a joke.”
“Imagine, for 20 months, the Chief Minister didn’t even know a minister was running a NON-EXISTENT DEPARTMENT,” Bhandari scoffed on his X account.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) joined the chorus, labelling it a glaring example of misgovernance. And who can blame them? This is the kind of blunder that would make even the most seasoned bureaucrats blush.
Dhaliwal is the same minister who’s been in the spotlight for Punjab’s handling of deportees from the US, a role that at least involves a real department. Yet, even there, his track record is shaky, with complaints about deportees arriving without turbans and the state’s haphazard response to their return. Now, we’re left wondering: was he too distracted by his imaginary reforms to manage the real crises under his nose?
If it took 20 months to uncover this farce, what else is rotting undetected in the corridors of Punjab’s administration? How many other portfolios are paper tigers, propped up to give the illusion of progress?
AAP came to power promising to dismantle the old ways of opaque, inefficient governance. Instead, they’ve delivered a new low—where ministers can draw salaries, wield influence, and bask in titles, all while overseeing nothing at all.
The people of Punjab have been saddled with a government so detached from reality that it can’t even keep track of its own departments. While farmers march, deportees languish, and the state’s economy stumbles, their leaders are busy playing make-believe.
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