A day after the Supreme Court directed the Centre to conduct a survey of the land meant for construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal in Punjab to know how much work has been done, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said on Thursday that the state does not have a single drop of water to share with anyone.
“Other than what we are already giving to the other states, no additional water will be given,” the CM said after chairing an emergency meeting of the Cabinet this morning.
The Cabinet opined that “the state has no spare water to share with any other state so there is no question of construction of Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) canal”.
The Cabinet said “Satluj river has already dried up and there is no question of sharing even a single drop of water from it. Punjab has no surplus water to share with Haryana and reassessment of availability of water is required as per international norms”.
It was also observed that Punjab’s 76.5 per cent blocks (117 out of 153) are over exploited where the stage of groundwater extraction is more than 100 per cent, whereas in Haryana only 61.5 per cent (88 out of 143) are overexploited.
Meanwhile, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Thursday appealed to Punjabis to ‘gherao’ Central teams wishing to conduct a survey of the SYL canal land in the state.
Addressing a Press conference, SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia said there was no need for any survey for SYL. “Former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has returned more than 4,500 acres of land acquired for the SYL canal back to the 21,000 original owners free of cost,” he said.
Majithia alleged the CM had, under a sinister conspiracy, deliberately weakened Punjab’s case on the SYL canal issue in the Supreme Court as he was playing to the tunes of Aam Aadmi Party supremo and Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal.
“The Delhi chief minister is on record to have said that Haryana and Delhi should be given water from the SYL. Kejriwal’s government also filed an affidavit in the apex court to voice this demand” he added. The SAD leader said the Haryana AAP unit as well as Rajya Sabha mp Sushil Gupta had given a guarantee to the people of Haryana that once an AAP government was formed in the State SYL waters would reach each and every corner of Haryana.