Chandigarh: The Punjab Cabinet, led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, on Saturday (31 October) approved the Departmental Service Rules for the separate cadre of employees to be posted in the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB), the Chief Minister's Office said in a statement carried by Direct Headlines. With this approval, the process of direct recruitment to these posts can now be initiated, the statement said.
Source: Direct Headlines (CMO statement)
This is a new step, distinct from the earlier decision: at a Council of Ministers meeting on 15 November 2025, the Cabinet had approved the creation of the special BBMB cadre comprising 2,452 posts, and the recruitment rules and conditions of service had already been framed — Saturday's decision approves the Departmental Service Rules that were still pending. The CMO said Punjab's share of BBMB posts has frequently remained vacant despite a fixed quota, allowing employees from other states to be posted against those vacancies, even though Punjab contributes 40 per cent of the Board's finances. The BBMB, constituted under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, regulates the Bhakra and Beas dam projects, and partner states Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan send officers and employees to it on deputation.
Reporting Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema's briefing on the same cabinet meeting, First Hawker News said the government has made arrangements to establish 35 new NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) courts to speed up trials in drug cases and clear long-pending matters, and that 215 posts for assistant lawyers and 385 other posts, including judiciary-related positions, were approved. Those court and post figures come from that report of the minister's briefing; the CMO releases on the meeting reviewed for this story did not list them.
Source: First Hawker News
In a second official release on the same meeting, the Cabinet approved amendments to the service rules of Revenue Patwaris and Kanungos, restoring their district-level cadre. Under the amended Punjab Revenue Patwaris (Group C) Service (Amendment) Rules, 2026 and Punjab Revenue Kanungos (Group C) Service (Amendment) Rules, 2026, the District Collector will again be the appointing authority and will maintain district seniority lists. The CMO said a March 14, 2024 amendment had shifted the appointing authority to the Director of Land Records and a merged state-wide seniority list had created legal challenges and anomalies, including for Patwaris who had taken voluntary inter-district transfers on the condition of forfeiting seniority.
Source: Direct Headlines (CMO statement)
The Cabinet also approved transferring 217 kanals and 14 marlas of government land at Khandebad village in Lehragaga tehsil of Sangrur district from the Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management Department to the Punjab Mandi Board for a new grain market, at the collector rate of Rs 15 lakh per acre — a total consideration of Rs 4.08 crore — and approved three sets of labour rules: the Code on Wages (Punjab) Rules, 2026, the Punjab Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Rules, 2026, and the Punjab Social Security Rules, 2026.
The meeting also awarded the wet waste-based Compressed Biogas (CBG) project for the Mohali cluster to HPCL Renewable and Green Energy Limited (HPRGE) on a nomination basis; the project will be set up at Samgauli village in Dera Bassi, under the Municipal Corporation of S.A.S. Nagar (Mohali), the CMO said. First Hawker News, reporting the same decision, said the plant will handle scientific disposal of wet waste while generating green energy.
What happens next: the statements reviewed gave no recruitment timetable for the 2,452 BBMB posts and no opening dates for the proposed NDPS courts. The BBMB staffing question sits inside Punjab's wider, long-running disputes with the Board and the Centre over water sharing and dam security, and the jobs and fast-track drug-court announcements land as parties step up campaigning ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections. All decisions above are the government's own announcements, attributed as such; no opposition reaction was carried in the reports reviewed.