MLA Pargat Singh Targets Government Over Punjab's Power Crisis and Hollow Claims of 'Education Revolution'

Businessmen and traders bearing the brunt of the electricity crisis; government bears direct responsibility for this man-made disaster

Chandigarh, April 23, 2026: Former Education Minister and sitting Member of the Legislative Assembly, Pargat Singh, launched a scathing broadside against the ruling government today, calling out the widening chasm between its grandiose proclamations of an "Education Revolution" and the grim, ground-level reality confronting Punjab's students and citizens alike.
"While the government is busy plastering billboards celebrating a so-called educational renaissance, schoolchildren are being forced to sit under the open sky in scorching 40-degree Celsius heat — without classrooms, without roofs over their heads, and without teachers to guide them," Pargat Singh declared. "This is not a revolution. This is a betrayal."
The MLA painted a damning picture of the state's public school infrastructure, pointing out that hundreds of government schools across Punjab remain in a state of severe disrepair — bereft of adequate classrooms and basic shelter. Compounding this infrastructure deficit is a crippling shortage of teachers, while those already in service are routinely pulled away from their academic responsibilities to fulfill various government survey duties. The result, he stressed, is an education system in quiet collapse — one the government appears content to ignore as long as the optics remain favourable.
Turning to the escalating power crisis, Pargat Singh did not mince words. With temperatures hovering near 40 degrees Celsius, the people of Punjab are enduring power cuts stretching anywhere from eight to ten hours a day — crippling homes, shuttering small shops, and bleeding modest businesses dry. "A government that once boasted of a power surplus has now been thoroughly exposed," he said. "The same administration that misled the public with tall claims is today imposing punishing load-shedding schedules without a moment's thought for the ordinary citizen, the corner shopkeeper, or the small-scale entrepreneur struggling to keep the lights on."
He held the government squarely accountable for its failure to strike any workable balance between electricity demand and supply — a failure, he argued, that is neither accidental nor administrative, but a direct consequence of misplaced priorities and chronic misgovernance.
With characteristic sharpness, Pargat Singh also took aim at the government's penchant for optics over outcomes — noting that schools are being painted in party colours and rebranded as "Smart Schools" to generate applause, while the foundational needs of students remain woefully unaddressed. "Cosmetic makeovers do not constitute reform," he stated. "Slapping a coat of paint and a new nameplate on a crumbling building is not vision — it is deception, and the people of Punjab are seeing through it."
Singh demanded immediate intervention on both fronts — the restoration of uninterrupted power supply and the provision of essential infrastructure in government schools — so that children may learn in safe, dignified, and healthy surroundings. "Ignoring the basic needs of the people while chasing headlines is a profound injustice," he asserted. "Governance must happen on the ground, not in press conferences."