CHANDIGARH: In a bid to resolve the issue of river water share, Manohar Lal Khattar and Bhagwant Maan, the chief ministers of Haryana and Punjab respectively will have a much awaited meeting to discuss the Satluj-Yamuna Link Canal on Friday at 11.30am.
Haryana CM Khattar on Tuesday confirmed this while interacting with media persons after inaugurating the renovated media centre at Haryana Civil Secretariat.
Notably, the development comes at the time when Adampur by election is round the corner,
Notably, scheduling of this meeting is consequent to the decision of Supreme Court of India which had asked the chief ministers of the two states to work out the strategy to sort out the issue. January 18, 2023 is the next date of hearing in the Supreme Court of India.
“We will try out best to amicably resolve the matter with Punjab chief minister. We have time and again raised the SYL issue before the Centre also. We’ve right over SYL waters and we are going to claim it at any cost,” said Khattar.
He further said that the SYL water is very important for Haryana. Now fixing a deadline to resolve this issue at the earliest has become very essential, added Khattar.
Issue of construction of the SYL canal has been hanging fire for over two decades. Officials informed that CM Khattar’s confirmation of the meeting came after his Punjab counterpart had consented to hold meeting as mandated by the Apex court.
While Haryana had been fighting the legal battle to have its rightful share in Ravi Beas water by construction of SYL Canal. While Punjab has been resisting the same while citing the reason of non availability of water.
Referring to the development, leader of opposition Bhupinder Hooda categorically repeated that Haryana should initiate or the Centre should initiate the proceedings for constructions of SYL. "Even in the meeting, the agenda should how and when to start the construction," said Hooda.
While Haryana BJP President Om Parkash Dhankar too termed the latest development as yet another step towards justice for residents and farmers of Haryana.
Notably, Haryana through the chief minister has been making concrete and conscious efforts to resolve the SYL Canal matter. CM Haryana, through a demi-official letter dated May 6, 2022 had requested the Union Minister of Jal Shakti to convene the second-round meeting of the chief ministers of both states at the earliest to discuss this issue. Besides this, he had also written a demi-official letter to home minister Amit Shah, requesting him to organize a meeting of the chief ministers of both states over the same issue.
