Punjab Governor seeks to resolve river water issue on Riparian Principle

CHANDIGARH : The Punjab Governor Prof. Kaptaan Singh Solanki today sought a solution to the river water issue through the implementation of the nationally and internationally accepted Riparian Principle on the distribution of river waters, which has been implemented across the country to resolve river water disputes. In his address during the fifth and concluding budget session of the 14thPunjab Vidhan Sabha, the Governor cited that Punjab was predominantly an agricultural state and 27% of its agricultural land depended on river water for irrigation and 72% on tube well irrigation. Agriculture scientists and meteorological experts were unanimous in their view that if the current trend of reliance on tube well irrigation water continues, the state could turn into a desert in very near future. Thus, the state desperately needed to move away of from such heavy dependence on tube-well irrigation and the only solution to the danger that looms large over our heads lies in Punjab’s right on the waters of its rivers being safeguarded, for which the state government had been consistently seeking a solution to this problem since long, he added. Dwelling on the saga of injustice and discrimination meted out to Punjab, the Governor said that people of the state have also been heavily discriminated against by a brazen refusal of the Governments of India to transfer its Capital City- Chandigarh to Punjab. Similarly, he mentioned that several Punjabi speaking areas were left out of the state at the time of reorganization in 1966 and have still not been included into Punjab. He appealed to the Government of India to address and remove these instances of discrimination and injustice.