What Punjab’s stand would be at SYL meeting with Centre tomorrow

Chandigarh : The Amarinder Singh-led Punjab government is determined to stick to its stand that the state has no spare water for Haryana, during the meeting called by the Centre on Thursday to resolve the SYL canal dispute.
The meeting, to be chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Amarjit Singh, in New Delhi has been convened to discuss ways to implement the decree passed by the Supreme Court in 2002 about the construction of the canal.
It will be attended by top officials from both states. Punjab will be represented by Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh and Additional Chief Secretary KBS Sidhu besides a small group of officials and the state’s Technical Consultant on water issues SK Goyal.
Sources in Punjab government told The Tribune that initially the official-level meeting would take place to find a few “points of consensus” before Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes the mediation further with Chief Ministers Capt Amarinder Singh and Manohar Lal Khattar.
Amarinder has instructed the Punjab delegation to reject any suggestions for the construction of the canal. The state’s stand will be simple–to first determine the exact quantum of water available. Since the latest flow series shows that the quantum of water has reduced drastically–from 17.17 MAF to 14.37 MAF (based on the 1981-2002 series) and now to 13.38 MAF, there is no additional water that the state can part with through the proposed canal. A meeting of top officials of the state government, under the chairmanship of Amarinder, was held on Tuesday night, where the state’s stand during the proposed meeting was discussed. With Amarinder having earlier terminated all river waters sharing agreements with the neighbouring states by passing the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act in 2004, he was again determined not to succumb to any pressure and would not let the construction of the canal to start.