Fill It, Shut It, Forget It?

The Sutlej-Yamuna link canal was dug to channel water from Punjab to Haryana. Is Badal’s new law a masterstroke or a  declaration of hostilities against the neighbour?

- Charanjit Ahuja

With Punjab elections less than an year away and the state facing an unprecedented wave of anti-incumbency and an undercurrent of anger against the ruling alliance, the Punjab Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal (Transfer of Proprietary Rights) Bill, 2016 has come as a huge opportunity to regain lost ground. The masterstroke by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has not only unnerved the opposition parties in Punjab but has also caused heartburn in neighbouring Haryana, with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar opposing the 14 March 2016 Bill to denotify the 121-km-long syl tooth and nail.

Notwithstanding the Supreme Court directions of a status quo on SYL, one can see excavator machines filling and dismantling the SYL that had been constructed to ferry water to Haryana from Punjab. Farmers with tacit support from authorities have already filled a major portion of syl in Punjab. The Bill gives back land to the farmers free of cost which had been acquired for the SYL decades back. As a political move, the Bill aims at changing the ongoing discourse in Punjab and taking the winds out of Opposition parties’ sails. There is already talk that Badal might announce an early poll.

The masterstroke seems to have come at a wrong time for Capt Amarinder Singh, president of the Punjab Congress and former chief minister who was touted as the saviour of Punjab waters. After all, it was he who had enacted the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act 2004 when Congress ruled the State. The move had put a full stop on the apex court’s intervention in matters related to completion of SYL.

Insiders at a meeting of Punjab Congress Manifesto Committee held on March 3, 1016 suggest that ironically it was Capt Amarinder Singh who had mooted this idea of filling up the canal by farmers.