Haryana’s water war on the Punjab
While Haryana Chief Minister Hooda brags that Punjab will be no problem on the new canal, does Chief Minister Amrinder Singh have anything to say?
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 10, 2006 - In an Op-Ed piece (headlined, ‘Haryana canal plan needs a close look’) in last Sunday’s Tribune - Issue of 7 May 2006 - a former Chief Engineer (Irrigation), Punjab, Sirdar G. S. Dhillon, has unwittingly given the technical details of the illegal Rs. 250-crore, 109-km. link canal being built at top speed (to connect BML-Hansi-Butana canals) which would steal water-short Punjab’s river water from the Bhakra Main Line left bank where both banks of the Bhakra Main Line canal lie in Haryana territory. (To read Engineer Dhillon’s Tribune article please click at: www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060507/edit.htm#1)
Engineer Dhillon’s above article in the Tribune confirms, with technical details, the ‘wake up call’ we gave to the Punjab leadership, thirteen months ago when we first heard, from our sources, about a new conspiracy in Haryana to steal parched Punjab’s water through a new canal. See our column dated April 06, 2005, headlined, “Latest conspiracy on the SYL canal issue -– Haryana’s Congress leaders plan to manipulate the Nangal headworks, with a new canal in Haryana, to siphon extra water from the Bhakra canal` (www.khalistan-affairs.org/khalistancalling/2005/april06.aspx) We had written in the above mentioned Khalistan Calling, and we reproduce a few lines verbatim, that, “Our sources report that some Haryana state Congress leaders have come up with the suggestion that Haryana state ought to syphon water from the Bhakra main line canal (which currently carries Sutlej river water to Western Haryana) at a location in the Narwana sub-division through which it passes, by constructing a new eighty Kilometer long link canal from there to carry water into the Yumna canal system, near Panipat, all inside Haryana territory. These Congress leaders have also convinced themselves, and probably the Haryana Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as well, that the Sikh majority of Punjab is so fixated on the SYL canal issue that they won't even know when the Hindu-dominated, anti/ Sikh officials of the BBMB (Bhakra Beas Management Board) who have full control over the Bhakra Nangal dam and Nangal headworks (unlike the Ropar, Harike and Ferozepore headworks which are controlled by the state of Punjab) secretly increase the outflow in the Bhakra canal to the deteriment of the Punjab." End of quote culled from the Khalistan Calling dated April 06, 2005.
Irrigation Engineer G. S. Dhillon has confirmed our misgivings in his Tribune Op-Ed. He writes that, “The Haryana government’s decision to build a 2000-cusec capacity canal to take water from the Bhakra Main Line (BML) canal to the adjoining Western Yamuna Canal (WYC) needs a close look.” Irrigation Engineer Dhillon is right in his observations and has innocently raised a very interesting point. He writes that, “The Bhakra Main Line (BML) at the off-take point (located just below the Samana town of Patiala district in Punjab and Azamgarh village in Kaithal district in Haryana) currently carries 6,975 cusecs of which 85 per cent (5, 929 cusecs) flow is for the BCCA (Butana Canal Command Area) of Haryana, 10 per cent (697 cusecs) is reserved for downstream areas of Rajasthan and the remaining 5 per cent (349 cusecs) is for Punjab area below the off-take point.” If Haryana is already receiving 85% (or 5, 929 cusecs) of the 6, 975 cusecs of water carried by the Bhakra Main Line from where is the 2, 000 cusecs of extra water for the new canal going to come from, is the first question that comes to mind?
The answer to the question in the above paragraph, about the source of the extra 2, 000 cusecs of water for Haryana becomes obvious if one reads the Khalistan Calling dated April 26, 2006, headlined, “India’s anti-Sikh rulers conspire to make an ‘ass’ of the Amrinder Singh government by secretly increasing the capacity of the Ravi Beas Link canal from 4,000 to 10,000 cusecs of water”, (www.khalistan-affairs.org/khalistancalling/2006/april26.aspx) and a Tribune report, headlined, “Madhopur headworks closed.” (www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060330/punjab1.htm) Our April 26 column exposed the hush-hush 24-hour (day & night) building activity which took place, last month, around the Madhopur headworks on the Ravi river, (from where the Ravi-Beas Link Canal takes off) in the following words, “Our sources in the Punjab report that the sudden activity in the Supreme Court (after two years of ‘slumber’) has been synchronized with the hush-hush day & night construction work, currently being carried out on a war footing, (right under the nose of the slumbering Amrinder Singh government) to increase the water flow (from 4, 000 cusecs to 10, 000 cusecs of water) in the Ravi-Beas Link canal at Madhopur, in District Gurdaspur. The Ravi-Beas link canal diverts Ravi water to non-riparian Rajasthan, free of charge via the Harike headworks, as a result of which natural replenishment of underground water in Gurdaspur and Amritsar districts has been stopped for many years. This has lead to significant fall in the below-ground water table which has made farming a losing proposition and has lead to numerous farmer suicides.” End of quote.
However, we made one mistake in the above mentioned April 26, 2006, Khalistan Calling. We thought the destination of the extra water to be siphoned by the Ravi-Beas Link canal, after the recent modifications to the Madhopur headworks on the Ravi river, was meant for the BJP-ruled non-riparian state of Rajasthan. We were wrong. It has become obvious, from Engineer G. S. Dhillon’s OP-Ed, published in the Tribune of May 07, and discussed above, that the destination of this extra thousands of cusecs of water, which would have replenished the underground water of Gurdaspur and Amritsar districts of the Punjab and helped clean up the polluted Ravi and other surface waterways in that area, will now somehow be siphoned to non-riparian Congress-ruled Haryana for the new illegal Rs. 250-crore, 109-km link canal being built at top speed there, to connect Bhakra Main Line (BML) to the Hansi-Butana canals.
Interestingly, according to a report carried in the Tribune of March 23, 2006, the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, had repeated his earlier claime that work on the Hansi-Butana link canal was in progress and would be completed within a year. The Haryana Chief Minster rubbished claims that the new canal had hit a roadblock following the CWC's (Central Water Commission) direction to obtain the “concurrence” of Punjab and Rajasthan for puncturing the Bhakra Main Line . Mr Hooda claimed that the canal will be ready within the year and getting the concurrence of the two states (Punjab & Haryana) would not be a problem. (For details of what Mr. Hooda told the Tribune on March 23, 2006, about the new canal, please click at: www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060324/haryana.htm#1) Earlier in February 2006, Haryana Chief Minister Hooda was reported in the HINDU newspaper of February 19, 2006, to have said the same thing (after he laid the foundation stone of the Rs. 260-crore Bhakra Mainline-Hansi Branch-Butana Branch multipurpose link canal) that, “Punjab was not creating any hindrances in the construction of the canal.” (For details click at: www.thehindu.com/2006/02/19/stories/2006021907150500.htm
After reading the above public statements of Haryana Chief minister Hooda a question naturally comes to mind that, is there another Congress party conspiracy here, between the Congress party run central government in Delhi and the Congress government of Haryana and the Congress government of Punjab to rob the future generations of Punjab of life-giving water under the ‘umbrella’ of an appointed Sikh Prime minister? We hope not, but it surely seems like it. In a strange coincidence the current sad state of the water situation in Amritsar district – which will be robbed of even more water by the ‘improved’ Ravi-Beas Link canal – was highlighted in a recent story in the Punjab Agriculture section of the Tribune of May 01, 2006, which reported that, “Farmers in the border belt of the Amritsar district were forced to abandon orchard farming due to the receding water table and non-supply of canal water.” A farmer Charantjit Singh of Fatehabad village near Khadoor Sahib, who owns a 50-acre orchard of mango, peach, litchi and other ornamental trees, was quoted as saying that, “he was forced to uproot mango and other trees planted 100 years ago as he was not getting canal water from the Goindwal minor distributory for the past three months.” (www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060501/punjab.htm) As a backgrounder please also read our column dated March 15, 2006, headlined, “Terrible state of water in the ‘water-surplus’ state of Punjab,” by clicking at: www.khalistan-affairs.org/khalistancalling/2006/march15.aspx)
Every one appreciates Punjab Chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh’s recent ‘farmer-friendly’ statements about their Rs. 24, 000 crore debt liability, of which Rs. 12, 000 crores is owed by the Punjab - mainly Sikh - farmers to the usurious banias. (see Hindu of May 5, 2006: www.thehindu.com/2006/05/05/stories/2006050515710500.htm) We hope he has read the above mentioned Tribune story, about the water woes of the farmers of Khadoor Sahib, in Amritsar District, who are suffering because of the Ravi-Beas Link canal. We suggest he also read the detailed BBC report of May 1, 2006, headlined, “Debt drives Indian farmers to suicide,” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/4954426.stm) as the Punjab farmer has the highest debt liability in India. We hope he has also made a note of the uppity statement of his Congress party colleague, the Haryana Chief minister in which Mr. Hooda has confidently claimed that, “getting concurrence of Punjab to puncture the Bhakra Main Line canal would not be a problem.”
‘Is the puncturing of the Bhakra Main Line (and siphoning without charge, extra 2, 000 cusecs of Ravi and Sutlej waters by stealth) a ‘No problem’? This is a question every Punjabi MUST ask all the leaders of Punjab, specially Capt. Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal, who not so long ago, on July 12, 2004, joined hands in a magnificent display of unity in the Punjab Assembly, over the waters of the Ravi and the Beas rivers when that august elected body unanimously passed the Punjab Termination of Water Agreements Act, 2004 which thrilled every Punjabi? (For details of that act please click at: www.khalistan-affairs.org/home/khalistancalling/2004/july14.aspx)
Following the foundation stone laying by Haryana Chief minister Hooda of the new Rs. 260-crore Bhakra Mainline-Hansi Branch-Butana Branch multipurpose link canal, on February 19, 2006, the Badal Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), to its credit, promptly demanded the deletion of Section 5 of the Punjab Termination of Water Agreements Act, 2004, by the Punjab Assembly. Readers may recall that Section 5 of the Act guarantees that the existing allocation of water of the Sutlej river to non-riparian states of Haryana and Rajasthan will be protected even after the Act came into being. The details of this wise and patriotic demand by the Badal Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) was carried in a Tribune report, by Ajay Banerjee, headlined, “Amend water pacts termination Act: SAD,” on February 25, 2006. (For full Tribune report please click at: www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060225/punjab1.htm#4)
When can the people of Punjab expect another display of unity, in the Punjab Assembly, by the Punjab leaders, like Capt. Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal, over the waters of the Sutlej also? The Badal Shiromani Akali Dal has already spoken as to what ought to be done to stop the planned theft of Punjab’s life-giving river water via the new Haryana canal. Now it is the turn of Punjab Chief Minister Capt.Amarinder Singh to speak and act.