Mann facing many financial challenges in delivering Kejriwal's poll vows

Punjab's slide into financial hell and its debilitated state today started in the post-terrorism era

Punjab’s new chief minister (CM), Bhagwant Mann, decided to get to work on the day of his swearing-in, saying there was little time to waste and many promises made by his boss, Arvind Kejriwal, to keep. Mann has an arduous if not an impossible task to fulfil many of the dreams peddled by Kejriwal to Punjab’s masses in the run-up to the elections.

That’s because Punjab isn’t Delhi, whose model is being sought to be replicated in the state. Punjab’s staggering debt of Rs 2.6 trillion is equivalent to half its gross state domestic product (GSDP). In revenue-surplus Delhi, the state