Mann said he did not agree to Haryana’s demand for completing the canal construction. “We asked them why the canal should be constructed when we do not have water. If Haryana needs water, both the states should go to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. If the PM wants to give anything to Haryana, he should make arrangements from the Yamuna or elsewhere. We do not have a drop. We have no enmity, but when we do not have water how can we give it? I told him that we should go to the PM together. The PM rules the entire country. We both CMs should go to him. I will tell him that Haryana could get water from the Yamuna or the Sharda. We cannot call Satluj and Beas rivers. Now these are just drains. There is no water.”
Mann said the Centre would decide what is to be done on the issue. “We categorically told him we will not construct the SYL. The land has been denotified. The land at some places has been reclaimed by the residents,” he said.
Mann said he had told his Haryana counterpart, “Punjab had 18.56 MAF water when the agreement took effect in 1981. Now we have 12.66 MAF only. How do we accept that agreement? We plead to Haryana like a younger brother. But they want a canal. Why are canals constructed? For water? But we do not have water. First, the availability of water should be assessed.”
Mann went on to say that only 27 per cent of the area in Punjab was irrigated with canal water. The rest is being irrigated with water pumped from underground aquifers. As many as 1,400 km of canals and rivers have dried up in the state, he said.
“It was a long discussion. I had taken all my officers including principal secretary (irrigation) Krishan Kumar, advocate general Vinod Ghai and additional chief secretary to the CM Venu Prasad. I did a lot of homework by discussing the issue not only with officials and lawyers but also with senior journalists who have been writing on the SYL and had reported on the trouble-torn times of terrorism in Punjab,” he said.”I have put across my point strongly. I want to say the state’s point was not raised so strongly in the previous years. How was (former Haryana CM) Devi Lal given permission to conduct a survey? The Rajiv-Longowal accord has clauses on SYL. How did that happen?”
Speaking on legislation brought in by former chief minister Amarinder Singh, Mann said, “I will tell you the story about that Act. When the Vidhan Sabha passed the Bill, the governor gave his assent to the Act. Six-seven months later, as Haryana was going to the polls, the Congress-led Centre sent the Act to the President of India seeking his opinion.”
“I have told Khattar that all agreements on water have a clause that every 25 years these should be revised. But after 41 years, they want us to follow the same proposed division of water. After reorganisation, while Haryana got 4.65 MAF from the Yamuna and 1.8 MAF from the Sharda-Yamuna, Punjab did not get a single drop from there,” the chief minister said.
Mann said he had told the Haryana chief minister the water should be assessed first and that such an assessment would reveal that Punjab needed more water and should be given more water from Himachal Pradesh. “Khattar also raised the Hansi-Butana issue saying they could get water from this canal. But we told him the issue was in the Supreme Court. If we give water from there, many of our headworks in the Patran area would fail,” he said. “We will give our report to the PM now,” he added.
Asked about Khattar’s remark that Mann attended the meeting with a negative mind, the Punjab chief minister said, “It’s just that I put forth Punjab’s case strongly. That is why he is saying that.”
“I have met people from Moga, which is in the centre of the state. They told me they did not have water and asked how they were then going to share water,” he said.
Advocate general Ghai said Haryana was told that a tribunal should decide on how much water Punjab has.
Mann also hit out at the Opposition, which wanted an all-party meeting on the canal issue. Showing the invitation for the canal’s groundbreaking ceremony during former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s tenure in which Amarinder was among the organisers, Mann said, “Why should I invite him? He has only played politics on the issue.”