Punjab's welfare provision runs on subsidised grain through the public distribution system, an old age and widow pension, free electricity for agriculture, free bus travel for women since 2021, and a set of scholarship and health schemes.
The Atta Dal scheme, providing subsidised wheat and pulses to below-poverty-line households, has been the flagship since 2007 and has been reformed by every subsequent government.
The pension is small and is the only cash income for a large number of rural households, and its payment is frequently delayed by the state's fiscal position.
The identification of who qualifies is the standing problem, as everywhere. Exclusion of genuinely poor households and inclusion of ineligible ones have both been documented.
Punjab's per capita income is above the Indian average and its rural poverty is concentrated among landless Dalit households, which is why the state's aggregate figures conceal the position of about a third of its population.
The grain moves through the same procurement machinery the state runs for the centre. Punjab buys wheat at the support price, sends most of it into the national pool, and takes a share back to distribute at a subsidised rate to its own households. The grain travels a long way in order to move a short distance.
Delivery runs through the ration depot and through the panchayat, and exclusion from the list is a standing local grievance. Being left off is more common than being wrongly included.
Free electricity for tubewells goes to whoever has a tubewell, which is to say it goes to landholders in proportion to how much land they hold. The largest single item of welfare spending in the state is distributed by the size of a person's field, and it is the one item nobody proposes to means test.