The Hindu : New Delhi News : Centre duty-bound over Supreme Court order on SYL: Dasmunshi

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Thursday, Jun 10, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Centre duty-bound over Supreme Court order on SYL: Dasmunshi

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHICHANDIGARH, JUNE 9.JUNE 9 Faced with a Supreme Court order to allow completion of the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal on its side, the Punjab Chief Minister, Amarinder Singh, today met the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and apprised him of the State's problems and concerns on the issue.

Separately a group of Congress MPs from Punjab also met Mr Singh, while Congress MPs from Haryana met the Chairperson of the UPA, Sonia Gandhi, to press for implementation of the Supreme Court order. The Shiromani Akali Dal is meeting in Chandigarh tomorrow to draw their strategy on the fallout of the apex court's order.

Later, the Union Water Resources Minister, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, told Mr Amarinder Singh, that the Ministry was "duty-bound to honour, implement and execute the order of the Supreme Court (to construct the SYL through Punjab) in letter and spirit.'' This was conveyed to Mr Singh when he called on him.

At the same time, Mr Dasmunshi told the CM that "the Ministry and the Government had no intention to create any situation which remotely hurt the interests of the people of Punjab and Haryana in so far as the canal and irrigation interests were concerned''.

Emerging from his meeting with Mr Dasmunshi, Mr Amarinder Singh said Punjab had given its side of the story to both, the Prime Minister and to the Minister, Water Resources. He said he had told the Centre of the impact the implementation of the Supreme Court order would have on Punjab. "If surface irrigation is taken away from us, then 9 lakh hectares of Southern Punjab will go dry.'' He said the State had demanded a second tribunal two years ago. "The Water Resources Ministry had referred that to the Law Ministry which had sought the advice of the Attorney-General. The AG's advice on a second tribunal was referred to the Law Ministry which again sent it to the Ministry for its opinion.''

He said in the last 18 years the availability of surplus Ravi-Beas had reduced from 17.17 million acre feet to 14.37 million acre feet as established by a recent survey of the Bhakra Beas Management Board. According to him, Haryana had received its share from the Yamuna waters and will get more from the proposed Sharda-Yamuna link. He said in the reorganisation of erstwhile Punjab, when all assets were divided on 60: 40 ratio then water too should have been on same basis. Instead Haryana had got more than its share. Asked about Mr Manmohan Singh's response, he said: "He listened to us. What decision the Centre takes on implementation would be theirs.''

`Disband Eradi Tribunal'

NEW DELHICHANDIGARH, JUNE 9.JUNE 9 . In a statement here today, senior Congress leader and Punjab's Transport Minister, Tej Parkash Singh, sought the immediate disbanding of the Eradi Tribunal as it had already outlived its utility, reports Our Special Correspondent

He said that the root cause of all the unsavoury controversies pertaining to water and SYL canal today lay in Akali Dal's unimaginative leadership in general and its top leader's conduct and attitude when in power in particular.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Punjab unit of the CPI, Joginder Dayal, while talking to press persons, has sought an all- party meet on the SYL issue.

While stressing that there was need to look beyond the mere legalistic aspect on the<243> issue, he said that all national level parties must adopt a single stance in both the States.

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