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Punjab cannot deny water, says Magsaysay winner

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, JUNE 22. Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh, better known as Waterman, has described the recent Punjab Assembly resolution refusing to share the waters of the Ravi-Beas river system with other States as "unjustifiable''. Punjab cannot deny water as other States too have a right to this resource, he noted.

Mr.Singh, back from Nairobi after attending a UNEP meeting on "dams and development project assessment'', felt that Punjab should look at the issue giving it a national perspective. "The States should have a nationalist approach in sharing of river waters. They should not let party politics and parochial interests to come in between,'' he said.

Mr.Singh said he did not share the viewpoint expressed in the unanimous resolution passed by the Punjab Assembly on June 12 which had said that "any inter-State basin transfer of waters from Punjab is bound to be at the cost of existing users, especially the farmers''. "In my view Punjab has surplus water to share. Moreover the State also misuses water,'' the water expert observed.

"Punjab should realize that this is not its own water. Punjab rivers are receiving water from Himachal Pradesh and Uttranchal. Any attempt to treat the whole flow in the rivers of Ravi-Beas is both unethical and against natural justice,'' Mr.Singh argued. As far as Rajasthan was concerned, this State had a legal right to claim the water as per the various agreements made in the past, he pointed out.

Mr.Singh, who is the convener of the Rashtriya Jal Biradari (National water brotherhood), expressed the view that water should be treated as the property of the nation. The provisions of the Constitution should guide the leaders in deciding on common natural resources like water, he said.

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