WSN Service

CHANDIGARH: Fresh efforts to drain away Punjab’s precious natural resource, water, to the neighboring Hindu state of Haryana have been started by the government of India headed by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.

The Bhajam Lal ministry has mounted pressure on Delhi to take early steps to complete the Satluj Yamuna link canal project. Mr. Bhajan Lal has appointed an old hand at Haryana’s irrigation affairs Mr.  Shamsher Singh Surjewala as Irrigation and Power Minister who took the first available opportunity after being sworn in to reiterate his stand that early completion of the S.Y.L. project was his government’s first priority.

Mr. Surjewala issued his statement on June 26. No Punjab party issued any rejoinder for three days until an Akali Dal (Mann) spokesman, Mr Amritpal Singh Nakai, declared that his party would not allow the S.Y.L, canal to be completed because Punjab had no surplus water to give to Haryana.

Mr. Nakai ridiculed Surjewala’s Claim that the canal would be dug “at all costs” and said similar as Sections had also been made by Mr. Devi Lal and Mr. Om Prakash Chautala.

Mr. Nakai also for the first time questioned the flow of water in the Rajasthan’s Indira Gandhi canal from Punjab’s Harike head works and said that the flow of water to Rajasthan was not permissible when Punjab own districts Bathinda, Faridkot and Ferospore had no irrigation facilities.

The Dal (Mann) spokesman added that his party would not allow Punjab’s natural wealth to be looted by Delhi and would make every sacrifice, to prevent the loot.

Observers feel that attitude of a Punjab party towards the water issue has become an old test of its allegiance to State’s supreme interests. Delhi’s concern had all along been to ensure that any party causing uncertainty on the water issue should not be allowed to come to power in Punjab. It is strange that while the Government of India always regarded the water issue as an item of high political priority. Most Sikh parties and organization had paid no heed to the issue.

In fact, most traditional Alkalis are shrewd enough to understand that a strict constitutional stand on the water issue by Punjab would Create a permanent deadlock in the Delhi-Punjab relations and the Center would never allow any supporter of this stand to come to power in the state, It is precisely for this reason that the traditional Alkalis have all along been either skirting the issue or have been permitting concessions to the Center to present the people of Punjab with a “fait accompli”.

Thus the Alkalis themselves all varieties without any exception permitted the Government of India to dig up the Indira Gandhi canal from Harike head works way back in fifties. They, again, allowed the Center to construct the Bharkra Mainline canal and recently the S.Y.L. canal to take away about 74% of the Punjab water to the neighboring states which is unprecedented in the irrigation history of India.

Incidentally, the Mann Akali Dal, too, remained silent when former Prime Minister Chander Shekhar had declared his resolve on his first visit to Haryana in December 1990 to complete the S.Y.L. project “whatever the cost”. Instead of protesting against the Statement of the Prime Minister, Mr. Mann went to Delhi to hold with him a 90-minute secret meeting.

Has the Mann Dal now changed its stance because it sees no possibility of a deal with the Center coming about? Observers are inclined to doubt the sincerity of this Akali Dal unless it translates into practice its words and starts an action plan to stop all supplies to Rajasthan through the Indira Gandhi canal and to Haryana through the Bhakra Mainline canal and the proposed S.Y.L. canal.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 5, 1991