Punjab Says Not a Drop of Water for Haryana

In a strongly worded resolution passed on Monday, the Punjab legislative assembly said the “Government of Punjab will not give even a single drop of water from its share to Haryana.” It went on to say that the 4,000 cusecs of water that is being given to Haryana for drinking purpose will be continued as a matter of humanity “but not even a drop more will be given.”

The resolution was passed unanimously, cutting across party lines after it was moved by the state’s water resources minister Barinder Kumar Goyal. The resolution was moved after a series of heated statements and counter-statements by the chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana in the wake of the decision by the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) to allocate an extra 4,500 cusecs of water to Haryana from the Bhakra-Nangal dam system. This is over and above the allocation of 4,000 cusecs for Haryana.

Among other matters, the resolution stated that, “Sutlej, Ravi and Beas rivers pass through only Punjab. Then on what basis is their water being given to other states? In 1981, when the agreement to share the water of these rivers was signed between the states, the amount of water in the rivers that was written in the agreement and the amount of water that was distributed amongst states was much more than the actual water now available in these Rivers. Because of this, a new agreement should be made for sharing the water of these rivers.”

A HEATED DISPUTE

The last point of the resolution—the one that refers to the 1981 agreement between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan on the sharing of waters from the Ravi and Beas rivers under the aegis of the Centre—allocated 4.22 Million Acre Feet (MAF) of water to Punjab; 3.5 MAF to Haryana; 8.6 MAF to Rajasthan; 0.20 MAF for Delhi’s drinking water supply and 0.65 MAF to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

The state assembly has called for a “new agreement” for sharing these river waters. In 2004, Punjab unilaterally withdrew from that agreement. On 13^th July that year, the state assembly passed The Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, enabling the state to exit from the 1981 agreement. That legislation stated that Haryana and Rajasthan were allocated their share of river waters as usage by “sufferance” and not as a right. The 1981 agreement also stipulated that Punjab would implement the Sutluj Yamuna Link (SYL) project in a time-bound manner and the state would construct the portion of the canal passing through its territory. The 2004 Act allowed Punjab to exit that part of the agreement as well.

Nine days after the 2004 Act was passed, the President of India had referred the matter to the Supreme Court under his power to consult the court (Article 143). The court was asked whether that law was constitutionally valid. The court gave a negative answer saying that, “considered to be legal and valid and the State of Punjab cannot absolve itself from its duties/liabilities arising out of the Agreement dated 31″ December, 1981.”

The court gave its advisory opinion in 2016, 12 years after Punjab passed that law. Now the state assembly has passed a resolution, that effectively seeks to re-open the question de novo, nearly nine years after the highest court of the land ruled against it.

Interestingly the resolution passed on Monday said that, “Sutlej, Ravi and Beas rivers pass through only Punjab.” This is incorrect. The Sutluj River originates in Tibet and flows through Himachal Pradesh and then enters Punjab before exiting India into Pakistan. Similarly, the Ravi River originates in Himachal Pradesh and then flows into Punjab before entering Pakistan. The Beas River also originates in Himachal Pradesh before flowing into Punjab and later into Pakistan. Interestingly, Himachal Pradesh—the upper riparian state for all three rivers—has not made claims for sharing of the waters of these rivers.

The welter of legal claims and counter-claims over the 1981 agreement and its consequences (including the SYL Canal) have been the subject of long running legal disputes between Punjab and Haryana. These disputes continue to linger until today.

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