CHIEF MINISTER'S OFFICE PUNJAB CHANDIGARH INDIA

CHIEF MINISTER'S OFFICE

 

HANSI-BUTANA
BADAL OBJECTS TO HARYANA MANOUEVERS : ASKS PM TO INTERVENE
PRESS RELEASE
 
Chandigarh May 15- The Punjab Chief Minister, Mr. Parkash Singh Badal said here today asked the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to intervene immediately to stop the Haryana government from undertaking unlawful accessing of water from the Bhakra Main Line  through forced Hansi-Butana  Tributaries .
          Mr. Badal said that Punjab would never allow such flagrant violation of norms, laws and principles. He said that the Haryana gov3ernment's proposed action amounted to plain robbery and "this will not be tolerated under any circumstances." He asked the Prime Minister to act immediately not only in the interests of his home state but in the over-all national interest to ensure that the issue did not slow ball into a major political and economic crisis between the sisterly states of Punjab and Haryana.
        Mr. Badal was reacting to reports in a section of the press today which said that Haryana was preparing the ground for puncturing the BML to illegally draw water from the canal. The reports also spoke of massive digging machinery being moved to the BML banks for the purpose
     Mr. Badal also came down heavily on the Central Water Commission (CWC) for duplicity of standards with regard to the Hansi-Butana issue. Lashing out at Centre’s role on the issue, he said that the gross violations of the settled law. Mr. Badal re-iterated that it was paradoxical that while the Dashmesh Canal project was stalled by the CWC, it (the Commission)  had chosen to wink at the Haryana government's stealthy maneuvers to play havouc with the law of the land.  "On the one hand, the CWC is not clearing irrigation projects of Punjab ostensibly because of inter - state implications even when the state had assured that it would draw water from its own quota while on the other it had cleared the various  projects of Haryana. The response of CWC and Government of India to the demands of Punjab to start irrigation projects by using the state's own share of water in Satluj–Beas System had always been negative," said the Chief Minister.
        The Hansi Butana project was started by Haryana in haste without a proper project report, without technical appraisal by the CWC and without concurrence of the states of Punjab and Haryana which was mandatory under article 13 of Bhakra Nangal Agreement of 1959. The Haryana Government had even dispensed with the mandatory requirement of environmental and forest clearances. Mr. Badal said that the inter state meeting held under the aegis of CWC on  March 17, 2006 and was attended by the representatives of Haryana had decided that since the project had inter - state implications, it would be appraised by CWC; and Haryana would obtain concurrence of Punjab and the BBMB to puncture the canal. However, without caring for the decisions taken in the said meeting, Haryana illegally started the construction of the Project in April 2007.