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SYL canal row: Don’t have a drop to spare: CM Mann at emergency cabinet meet
A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to survey the land allocated for the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, a long-standing contentious project between Punjab and Haryana, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann said not a single drop of additional water will be given to any other state at any cost
Chandigarh : A day after the Supreme Court asked the Centre to survey the land allocated for the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, a long-standing contentious project between Punjab and Haryana, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann said not a single drop of additional water will be given to any other state at any cost.
The chief minister declared this after an emergency meeting of the state cabinet at his residence. “The issue of SYL was discussed at the meeting. Not even a single drop of additional water will be given to any other state at any cost,” Mann said in a post on X.
He said the cabinet also considered convening the monsoon session of the state assembly soon. Though no dates were indicated, the session could be called as early as next week.
The cabinet meeting was held in the backdrop of the Supreme Court asking the Centre to continue the mediation process to resolve the festering inter-state dispute over river water sharing and survey the portion of the land in Punjab allocated for constructing the canal which has been a hanging fire since 1990 and caught up in a protracted legal battle between the two neighbouring states.
Later, finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema, who held a press conference at ruling AAP’s state headquarters here, said the government was still to get a copy of the apex court’s order. “Once the copy of the order is available, we will meet again to discuss it and decide the next course of action,” he said.
On the monsoon session of the state assembly, the finance minister said that speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan was traveling and the decision on the session would be taken after his return. Cheema was accompanied by cabinet ministers Bram Shanker Jimpa, Chetan Singh Jauramajra and AAP’s state working president Budh Ram.
On Wednesday, the opposition Congress had also urged Mann to call a special session of the Punjab assembly to decide the future course of action on the SYL canal issue. Earlier, AAP Punjab chief spokesperson Malvinder Singh Kang had demanded that a tribunal be constituted to know the situation of water in the SYL canal and Punjab. He said the tribunal should conduct an in-depth study on the matter as to whether Punjab is in a position to provide water to other states in the present circumstances or not.
The state cabinet also said there is no question of construction of the SYL canal. “Punjab has no surplus water to share with Haryana and reassessment of availability of water is required as per international norms,” it said. It was also observed that Punjab’s 76.5% blocks (117 out of 153) are overexploited where the stage of groundwater extraction is more than 100%, whereas in Haryana, only 61.5% (88 out of 143) are overexploited.
The SYL canal was conceptualised for effective allocation of water from the Ravi and Beas rivers. The project envisaged a 214-km canal, of which a 122-km stretch was to be constructed in Punjab and the remaining 92 km in Haryana.
Haryana has completed the project in its territory but Punjab, which launched the construction work in 1982, shelved it subsequently.
