Quick Take
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Haryana CM Saini urged Punjab to provide drinking water amid tensions.
He warned excess water could flow to Pakistan, in the absence of ample storage.
Saini claimed Haryana has not received its full water share this year.
New Delhi:
Haryana has made an appeal to neighbouring Punjab to provide drinking water to them or the excess Bhakra reservoir water will flow to Pakistan. The statement comes at a time India has suspended the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 tourists were killed.
Mr Saini pressed upon the need to empty the Bhakra reservoir, one of the largest dams under the now-suspended treaty, before monsoon. “It is necessary to empty the Bhakra Dam water reservoir before June so that rainwater can be stored during the monsoon. If there is no space left in the water reservoir, excess water will go to Pakistan via Hari-ke-Pattan, which is neither in the interest of Punjab nor the nation,” he said.
As the row over water-sharing between Punjab and Haryana escalates, Mr Saini warned that the supply of drinking water in Delhi will also be impacted. “As long as there was an Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi, the Mann government in Punjab had no objection to the water going to Delhi. Now that there is no Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi, why is Mann making such statements to punish the people of Delhi?” he said.
On Punjab’s claim that Haryana had exhausted its water share in March, Mr Saini said in reality, “we have not received our full share”. He further clarified that of water released to Haryana by the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) last month, 500 cusecs went for Delhi’s drinking water, 800 cusecs for Rajasthan, and 400 cusecs for Punjab itself. “Thus, the actual quantity of water received by Haryana remains only 6,800 cusecs,” he said.
“If the BBMB were to provide the remaining water as per Haryana’s demand, it would amount to just 0.0001 per cent of the water stored in the Bhakra Dam, a figure so small it would have no impact on its storage,” Mr Saini said.
On his part, Mr Mann accused the BJP of exerting pressure on the Punjab government through the BBMB to meet Haryana’s demand and stated that the neighbouring state has already used 103 per cent of its allocated water share in March.
He also asked the Centre to divert waters of the Chenab, Jhelum, Ujh and other rivers to northern states to cater to the needs owing to the onset of the paddy season, with the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan. Mr Saini said his counterpart “seems to have forgotten that in April-May, paddy cultivation is not carried out in Punjab and Haryana. In these two months, the water released by the BBMB is solely for drinking purposes.”
Bhakra, one of the dams apart from the Pong reservoir from which Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan meet their water requirements, is part of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan. The treaty was suspended a day after the April 22 attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 civilians.
Punjab and Haryana have been at loggerheads over the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal’s construction, which will effectively allocate water from the Ravi and Beas rivers, when completed. The project envisaged a 214 km canal, of which 122 kilometres was to be constructed in Punjab and 92 kilometres in Haryana. Haryana has completed the project in its territory but Punjab, which launched the construction work in 1982, later shelved it.
Mr Mann had said earlier this year that the SYL canal will never become a reality and his government is duty-bound to safeguard the interests of the Punjab while reiterating that the state has no water to share with others. The statement came after Mr Saini said SYL remains critical for the state and alleged that the Punjab government has made no progress in the matter.