SYL: Punjab heading for confrontation
Harbans Singh
Since times immemorial, in agrarian economies the distribution of river water has dictated the course of development. Long periods of peace and prosperity have followed whenever the feuding people got their share of water on the principles of equity, justice and fairness.

Interlinking idea revisits polity
G. S. Dhillon
Obeying the Supreme Court’s orders issued last October, the Union Government has revealed the blue-print for a scheme on interlinking our rivers so that the water resource available could be put to optimum use to overcome floods and droughts. The scheme is to be completed in a 10-year period and is expected to cost over Rs 200,000 crore, plus any rise due to price escalation.

Farming in December
Time to sow sunflower

SYL: Punjab heading for confrontation
Harbans Singh

Since times immemorial, in agrarian economies the distribution of river water has dictated the course of development. Long periods of peace and prosperity have followed whenever the feuding people got their share of water on the principles of equity, justice and fairness. When sharing becomes contentious, as in the case between Haryana and Punjab, the result could lead to an unproductive expenditure of Rs 850 crore and a loss of 100 lakh tonnes of food grains, the value of which works out to Rs 5000 crores.

However, unlike the dispute over Cauvery, the dispute over the Ravi-Beas waters is not traditional and owes its origin to the recent politics in Punjab. The fact is that the dispute over the sharing of the waters of Indus and the five tributaries of its basin existed even before Partition between the states of Punjab, Sind, Bahawalpur and Bikaner. This dispute was resolved in 1960 when India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water Treaty. The five rivers, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, were the tributaries of the Indus. Another tributary of the Indus basin was the Ghaggar, which traversed through the combined Punjab (much of it is now Haryana), Rajasthan and into Indus. However, over the centuries it has got lost in the sandy dunes of Rajasthan, though its water still flows underground to empty itself in the great river. It, therefore, is part of the Indus basin. This also explains the claim of Bikaner and now Rajasthan to the water of the tributaries of Indus.

Another important fact is that as part of the Indus Water Treaty, India paid Pakistan a sum of Rs 110 crore so that it could transfer its irrigation system based on the Sutlej and Beas rivers to the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers. This amount was paid to buy the waters of the Ravi, Beas and the Sutlej for the nation though only for the use of the Indus river basin states of the country. Even more pertinent is the fact that on January 29, 1955, in anticipation of the Indus Water Treaty, the states of Punjab, PEPSU, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir entered into an agreement on sharing the Ravi and Beas waters. Significantly, all claimant states belonged to the Indus basin.

Even earlier, in November 1954, the Power and Irrigation Ministry of the Government of India had called a meeting of the Chief-Engineers of the states concerned, who decided that the planned schemes would carry the water to West Yamuna Canal, Gurgaon Canal and the Bhakra Canal. Obviously, the sharing was to take place among the states of the Indus basin, a principle which was upheld by the Eradi Tribunal.

The dispute between Haryana and Punjab surfaced only when the neglect of the Haryana region and the demand for a Punjabi suba resulted in the reorganisation of Punjab in 1966 and the creation of a separate Haryana state. Haryana claimed more water on the ground that it was not only water deficient and drought prone but also it needed comparatively large quantities of water for irrigation in the state. Punjab claimed that the available water was barely sufficient to meet its demands and that, among the two, it alone, being a riparian state, had the exclusive right to the waters of the rivers. However, in March 1976 the Government of India, in accordance with the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, notified the division of water equally between Haryana and Punjab at 3.50 MAF each while giving 0.20 MAF to Delhi for meeting its drinking water requirement. Haryana was obviously disappointed at getting only 3.50 MAF as against its demand of 6.90 MAF, which was needed to meet the arid conditions.

Nevertheless, in a parallel development, that could address the need of the Haryana region to have more from the Ravi-Beas waters, the task of carrying this water was achieved by an engineering feat when the Beas was connected with the Sutlej through a tunnel in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh in the seventies. With the Ravi being linked to the Beas from Madhopur, Haryana anticipated getting its share of the Ravi waters from the Beas itself under the barter system.

It was at this time, given the competitive compulsions of Punjab politicians, that water sharing became an easy tool to excite the imagination and arouse the primal fears of a society so dependent upon agriculture and, therefore, water. In doing so, they not only reject the needs of the neighbours but also fail to acknowledge the sacrifice of the people of the erstwhile state and city of Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh, who not only lost their hearths and ancestral lands, but also their places of worship, which still defiantly stand in their watery graves, mute testimony to the architectural skills of their makers and the willingness of the citizens to make such extreme physical and emotional allowances for the making of the Bhakra Dam.

With the dire need of one and the obstinacy of the other getting compounded by extraneous factors, it was in the fitness of things that the matter was referred to a tribunal as part of the Punjab Settlement of 1986. However, after presenting its case before the Eradi Tribunal Punjab not only refused to accept the award (though technically it still remains to be notified) but also argued before the Supreme Court that it repudiates the Punjab Settlement of 1986 and, thereby, the Eradi Tribunal. It claimed that the Punjab Settlement did not have any constitutional sanctity, ignoring the fact, pointed out by the Supreme Court too, that paragraphs 9.1 and 9.2 of the agreement, related to the sharing of water from the Ravi and Beas system, had been granted Parliamentary recognition and that for the constitution of the tribunal even provisions of the Inter-State Water Dispute Act were amended. More followed when it also rejected the earlier agreements and awards of 1981, 1976 and even the agreement among the states concerned in 1955.

Now, Punjab threatens to dishonour the Supreme Court judgement over the construction of the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal to carry Haryana’s share of the Ravi-Beas water. Alternatively, it is manufacturing new arguments to buttress its intransigence, saying that Haryana, with its share from the Yamuna, has more water than Punjab, without realising that Haryana needs comparatively large quantities of water for irrigation.

The judgement of the Supreme Court has to be read again to fully comprehend the threat that the Punjab stand poses to the Indian Union and Constitution. It says: "The decisions taken at the governmental level should not be so easily nullified by a change of government and by some other political party assuming power, particularly when such a decision affects some other State and the interest of the nation as a whole." Moreover, the court opined, "The State Governments having entered into agreement among themselves on the intervention of the Prime Minister of the country, resulting in the withdrawal of the pending suits in the Court, cannot be permitted to take a stand contrary to the agreements arrived at between themselves." The court could not help adding, "That apart, more than Rs. 700 crores of public revenue cannot be allowed to be washed down the drain."

Punjab’s obduracy might help feed the tribal fears of security among the farmers of Punjab and a place in the corridors of power for the politicians, but the utter disregard for the various agreements, awards, tribunal reports and now Supreme Court judgement is only isolating it and pushing it towards a path of confrontation, which might threaten the universally accepted concept of "cooperative federalism" and the constitutional fabric of our polity.

Interlinking idea revisits polity
G. S. Dhillon

Obeying the Supreme Court’s orders issued last October, the Union Government has revealed the blue-print for a scheme on interlinking our rivers so that the water resource available could be put to optimum use to overcome floods and droughts. The scheme is to be completed in a 10-year period and is expected to cost over Rs 200,000 crore, plus any rise due to price escalation. The scheme, unlike earlier concepts, provides for three links, one in the South peninsular area and two in the North.

The southern water grid would interlink the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Cauvery, Pennar and the Vaigai rivers. This link will transfer surplus waters of the Mahanadi and the Godavari to the drought-prone and water-deficit areas in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.

The north-eastern grid would involve linking the Bramhaputra with the Ganga and further linking the Subaranrekha and Mahanadi rivers. Thus, this link would transfer the surplus waters of the Bramhaputra for the benefit of areas in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

The north-western link would interlink the Gandak, Ghaghra, Sarada, and the Yamuna rivers with the Sabarmati river and would transfer the surplus waters of the Gandak and Ghaghra rivers for the benefit of areas in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and Jharkhand.

The above scheme is based on the concept that for optimal development and utilisation of available water resources, the inter-basin transfer of water is a must and water from the surplus areas must flow to the water-deficit basins. Thus it would be possible to remove regional imbalances in water availability. For the task, the Union Government is going to set up a Special Task Force and also address the existing water rights of the states by making a suitable amendment in the Constitution.

The new thinking is that water is a national asset and not a monopoly of any particular state, depending on its geographical location. Individual boundaries of a state should not matter when issue of water use is one of national interest and general well being.

Accepting the advice of the apex court, the Central government will play the role of a leader and try to enlist the support of the states in conceiving, planning and executing the proposals, thus reviving the true sprit of federal governance.

It is hoped that the Union Government will rise to the occasion and meet the challenge posed in careful and judicious fiscal planning and management.

Adequate budgetary allocations would have to be made to prevent time over-runs, which in turn may lead to cost over-runs of the project envisaged.

LET us examine our track record in building interlinks for rivers.

The first interlinking project was built in the British-ruled Punjab between the Jhelum, Chenab and Ravi rivers. It started in 1910 and was commissioned in 1915. It enabled waters of the Jhelum to be issued for irrigating the Lower Bari Doab areas through links of the Upper Jhelum Canal, and the Upper Chenab Canal.

The second link was built for the transfer of surplus water from the Madhopur Headworks on the Ravi to Harike via the Beas and was called the Madhopur-Beas link. This was constructed in the 1960s.

The third link came as part of the deal struck in the Indus Water Treaty and formed an integral part of the Beas Project. It transferred waters of the Beas from a location known as Pandoh through a series of tunnels and an open channel to the Bhakra reservoir. The project was commissioned in 1974 and is called the Beas-Sutlej link.

The point to be noted here is that all these links did not involve any inter-state transfer of water.

A "garland canal project" was conceived by a Bombay-based hydrologist, Prof Dastur, in the 1960s. It proposed the construction of a canal running along the foothills of the Himalayas to collect water at present flowing down various streams and rivers. In the middle of this collector canal a link was proposed to connect it with the Mahanadi, Narmada, Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery rivers. This would have presented a "garland of watercourses" irrigating millions of hectares of land and quenched the thirst of millions of people. But engineering experts "pricked holes" in Prof Dastur’s balloon and the scheme failed to take-off.

A Ganga-Cauvery link project was conceived by a British engineer based in Madras around the 1920s. He proposed to "mingle holy Ganga waters with the equally sacred Cauvery waters for use in the Cauvery basin. Later, the idea was taken up by Dr K.L. Rao, a well-known engineer-politician who served as Minister for Irrigation in the Union Government.

The proposal got blessings from the World Bank and it was considered for execution during Indira Gandhi’s regime. Unfortunately, a hurdle cropped up: that it would involve excessive pumping of water, requiring power, which could not be made available. The total lift involved was more than 1800 ft. With the departure of Dr Rao from the national scene, the project was put on the backburner, only to be mentioned now and then.

In recent years there seems to be a revival of the interest in interlinking schemes. On August 17, 1996, speaking at Bangalore, Mr Deve Gowda, then known as the "humble farmer Prime Minster," resurrected the idea of interlinking various rivers of the country to provide an answer to the water dispute between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The proposal invoked considerable interest. However, there have also been words of caution: Attempts at forcing rivers to change course could also cause unforeseen havoc.

Farming in December
Time to sow sunflower

Give hoeing to gram and lentil to keep weeds under check. Give irrigation to normal-sown gram crop around mid-December and to lentil after about one month of sowing.

—The harvesting of toria should be completed to avoid losses owing to shattering.

—If the infestation of aphid is observed in sarson and raya then spray the crops with 350 ml of Metasystox 25 EC/Rogor 30 EC/Thiodan 35 EC in 100 litres of water per acre.

This is the ideal time for sowing sunflower. The sowing of seeds should preferably be done on ridges facing south. The spacing between rows should be kept 60 cm and the plant-to-plant distance 30 cm. In general, use 50 kg urea per acre alongwith 75 kg single superphosphate at sowing. In coarse textured soils, use a half dose of urea (25 kg) at sowing. Also drill 20 kg muriate of potash in soils testing low in available potassium. Prefer single superphosphate as it contains sulphur. If the crop follows potato having received recommended dose of fertiliser and farmyard manure (40 tonnes/ acre), then no fertiliser should be applied to sunflower.

However, if sunflower is grown after potato supplied with 20 tonnes/acre FYM, apply 25 kg urea per acre. To sunflower following toria apply 10 tonnes of FYM alongwith recommended dose of fertiliser. Stomp 30 EC @ 1.0 litre/acre can be used for the control of weeds in sunflower as pre-emergence treatment.

—Save the crop from frost by applying irrigation around mid-December. Start crushing/ harvesting in early varieties. Soon after the harvesting irrigate the fields. When the soil attains the optimum moisture condition, loosen it by interculture. Do not cover stubble with cane trash.

— Progressive Farming, PAU