# Cities

Khattar writes to Amarinder, wants him to join hands on water issue

The Haryana Chief Minister (CM) Manohar Lal said on Sunday that the Punjab government has been urged to join hands…

Statesman News Service | Chandigarh | May 6, 2018 10:06 pm

Khattar writes to Amarinder, wants him to join hands on water issue

The Haryana Chief Minister (CM) Manohar Lal said on Sunday that the Punjab government has been urged to join hands in checking the wasteful flow of Ravi waters to Pakistan keeping in view the unprecedented water crisis that looms large before both the states.

Manohar Lal was addressing a press conference here on Sunday while he informed that he has written a letter to his Punjab Counterpart Amarinder Singh to direct his concerned officers to take up the proposal in right earnest. The letter states, “You must have noticed reports about an unprecedented water crisis that looms large before our States. More and more blocks of Haryana and Punjab have anyway been slipping into the category of over exploited blocks even as our hard working farmers toil in the face of a stressed farm sector. I think that time has come when we must join hands in checking the wasteful flow of Ravi waters to Pakistan”.

In the letter the CM has mentioned that the 6th meeting of the Committee formed by Union government in this regard was held in the Central Water Commission, New Delhi on 23 April, 2012. It had assessed the quantum of Minimum Utilizable Water (MUW) as 32 cumecs on a sustainable basis. The Committee decided that the proposal for its diversion by constructing a 2 to 2.5 meter high diversion weir structure across river Ravi with a gravity flow canal off-taking from Dharamkot to Harike head works was viable.