Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 21

It is learnt that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi tomorrow, would tell him that Haryana can’t claim Punjab riverwaters as it had not given water from the Yamuna, which was part of Punjab before the state’s reorganisation in 1966.Sources said Capt Amarinder would present facts and figures before Modi to make a case for the state’s riverwaters. He would ask the Prime Minister to first address other matters related to riverwaters, keeping the SYL canal issue in abeyance.The state government has decided to make the allocation of Yamuna waters to Punjab a major issue. A senior official of the Irrigation Department said Haryana’s Yamuna water share was about 4.65 MAF (million acre feet). It was drawing more than 2 MAF, sources said.The state wants Modi to ask Haryana to give Punjab 60 per cent of the total water that would be available to Haryana from the Yamuna. Haryana has got a share of Punjab’s riverwaters, but it has not given share from the Yamuna.Another matter that Capt Amarinder would raise pertains to the proposed linking of the Sharda and Yamuna rivers. With the linking of the two rivers, Haryana would get about 5.5 MAF. That would meet Haryana’s requirement, a Punjab official said. The Chief Minister would ask Modi to take up the project on priority.Capt Amarinder would also raise the issue of re-measuring the flow of water in the Ravi-Beas rivers. As the flow of water in the two rivers has decreased substantially over the years, the CM would insist that a tribunal should be set up to reassess the availability of water.Besides, the CM would tell Modi that sub-soil water has gone down up to 300 feet in some blocks of the state.