The Punjab government has acknowledged a significant administrative oversight: Cabinet Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal was assigned to lead the Department of Administrative Reforms, a department that did not exist, for nearly 20 months. This revelation has prompted the government to issue a gazette notification amending his portfolio.
The official notification, dated 21 February 2025, stated that the Department of Administrative Reforms, previously allocated to Minister Dhaliwal, was “non-existent.” Consequently, Dhaliwal will now oversee only the NRI Affairs Department. The amendment is effective from 7 February 2025.
Minister Dhaliwal initially held the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare portfolio upon his induction into the cabinet in March 2022. However, during a cabinet reshuffle in May 2023, he was relieved of this responsibility and retained the NRI Affairs Ministry, along with the newly assigned Administrative Reforms Department. It has now come to light that the latter department was non-existent during his tenure.
Government sources disclosed that the so-called Administrative Reforms Department had no staff, conducted no meetings, and had no programs in place. Officials admitted that the department existed only on paper, leading to its recent abolition.
The opposition has seized upon this administrative lapse to criticize the Aam Aadmi Party -led Punjab government. National spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party , Pradeep Bhandari, remarked, “AAP has made governance in Punjab a joke! The AAP minister ran a department for 20 months which never existed! Imagine, for 20 months, the CM did not even know that a minister was running a ‘NON-EXISTENT DEPARTMENT.'”
Similarly, Bathinda Member of Parliament and Shiromani Akali Dal leader, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, commented, “Governance AAP-Punjab style. Allocate non-existent departments to ministers who themselves are ignorant of the portfolios they hold. All this is happening because ministers have no role in governance as the government is being run in remote control from Delhi.”
The incident has also sparked reactions on social media platforms. Users have criticized the AAP government for its oversight, with some suggesting that such errors undermine public trust in the administration.
In response to the criticism, the Punjab government has remained largely silent, with no official statements addressing the oversight. Minister Dhaliwal has also refrained from commenting on the matter publicly.
This episode raises questions about the internal processes and checks within the state government. Assigning a non-existent department to a cabinet minister and allowing the situation to persist for nearly two years points to potential gaps in administrative oversight and coordination.
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