4 min readChandigarhFeb 25, 2026 02:33 PM IST
First published on: Feb 25, 2026 at 02:31 PM IST
In just seven months, at least three of Punjab’s much‑hyped “money‑minting” policies have fallen flat. Either stalled, withdrawn, or stayed, these measures—from land pooling and farmhouses to cooperative societies and power utility land transfers—were designed to generate quick revenue and expected to help the fund‑starved government finance its ambitious goals, especially the promise to give Rs 1,000 per month to women.
1. Land pooling: A plan to generate revenue without messy acquisitions
It began in August 2025 with a land pooling policy. The idea was sold as a win-win. The farmers would have to voluntarily pool land for development and, in return, get a share in developed plots. The government had identified more than 40,000 acres of land for land pooling and hoped this would unlock thousands of acres without messy acquisitions and bring in hefty revenues through urban expansion.
But the move faced massive protests by farmers, landowners and opposition parties. As many as 107 panchayats passed resolutions against offering their land under the land pooling policy. Only 115 farmers and landowners, mostly realtors, pledged their land to the government under the policy.
In August last year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed the policy for four weeks, a development that was seen as a significant blow to the Bhagwant Mann government, which had pitched the policy as a “game-changer” and a “landmark reform” to tackle haphazard urban growth and curb the influence of land mafias.
Internally, the government was eyeing a revenue of Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 25,000 crore through this policy. It was planning to pump this money into infrastructure and development in the last year of the incumbent government, before it faced the next Assembly elections in early 2027. The government was also planning to pay Rs 1,000 per month to women voters, a pre-poll promise of the Aam Aadmi Party, from the funds generated.
2: A farmhouse policy that ran into NGT hurdle
The Punjab government’s farmhouse policy aimed to regularise existing farmhouses and permit new low-impact residential units on land that had been de-listed from the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA). These lands were largely in the environmentally sensitive kandi belt, from Mohali to Pathankot.
The kandi area had about 60,000 acres of land that could be used to construct farmhouses, and the government planned to charge a compounding fee that could go as high as four times the collector’s rate.
Advocate Kapil Arora challenged the policy, alleging it violated Supreme Court directions regarding land taken out of preview of the PLPA. The policy, he said, favoured VIPs and land sharks who had already constructed structures in violation of the top court’s directions. On December 18, 2025, the National Green Tribunal granted an interim stay on the implementation of the policy after the government said it would not move ahead.
3. Property registration plan dropped
In a notification on November 21, 2025, the government made it mandatory for owners of all apartments/flats in cooperative housing societies to get their units registered by paying stamp and collector’s duties, retrospectively. The order affected about 50,000 apartment owners in about 600 cooperative housing societies.
The move was a bid to earn Rs 200 crore, but it did not go down well with the owners of such properties. The government then reviewed its decision and made the registration mandatory only for prospective buyers.
Under the revised framework, members whose names appeared in the records of cooperative housing societies as of November 20, 2025, will be eligible for concessional registration of one conveyance or transfer deed. Such members will not be liable to pay stamp duty or other statutory levies, including infrastructure cesses, and will only be required to pay a registration fee of 1 per cent, subject to a maximum cap of Rs 2 lakh. The issue also reached the high court.
In August last year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed the land pooling policy for four weeks, a development that was seen as a significant blow to the Bhagwant Mann government. (File Photo) 
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