Groundwater stress tracker — Q1 2026.

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Punjab's structural challenges are not a crisis of inattention — they are a crisis of structure. The water table is falling. The agricultural model that delivered food security for India in the 1970s now delivers debt, dependency, and ecological collapse for the state that grew the food. The young leave. The fields stay. Successive governments offer relief but rarely reform. The system that broke Punjab is the system still in charge of it.

What the evidence shows

More than 78% of Punjab's groundwater blocks are categorised as over-exploited. The state's debt-to-GSDP ratio has crossed 47%. Net out-migration of working-age Punjabis has accelerated in three of the last five years. These are not isolated indicators; they are the visible surface of a single structural decline.

What we are doing

Punjab Think Tank exists to do one thing: take this evidence seriously, study it structurally, and design responses that policymakers, institutions, and citizens can actually use. Research first. Then think. Then solve. That is the discipline. This piece is the start of it.