Chandigarh, March 17
All three members of the Eradi Tribunal, which was set up in April 1986 for fixing the share of Ravi and Beas river waters between Punjab and Haryana, will visit various water headworks in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh by the end of this month.
Members expressed their willingness to visit the headworks at a recent hearing of this case in Delhi. Sources said both Punjab and Haryana have agreed to the visit.
The next hearing of the case is fixed on April 27. The Punjab’s Advocate General, Mr Harbhagwan Singh, confirming the proposed visit of the members, told The Tribune today that they would visit Bhakra Dam, Bhakra headworks at Nangal, Pong Dam and its headworks and possibly the Ropar and Harike headworks. He said teams of engineers and legal luminaries from Punjab and Haryana would accompany the members.
Mr Harbhagwan Singh, who appeared before the Tribunal at the last hearing early this week, said he argued that it did not fall in the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to hear the case regarding water dispute between Punjab and Haryana. “Neither Haryana was a part of the Indus basin nor the dispute between two states was an inter-state river waters dispute”, was main thrust of my argument, he added.
Moreover, the quantum of water in rivers had gone down tremendously for the past several decades and there was no rationality to rely on river waters data collected in 1916, 1922 and even after some decades. Rivers have changed their course and many rivulets and other seasonal streams and choes falling in the basin of these rivers have
either dried and there was trickle of water flowing in them.
When asked whether any date had been fixed for the visit, he said they would be visiting Punjab in the next 10 days.
The Punjab Government has adopted the suggestion of Mr Pritam Singh Kumedan, a river waters expert. He had suggested that the Punjab Government should challenge the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to hear the dispute. Mr Kumedan had also countered the state government’s view that it should plead for the setting up of a fresh Tribunal to resolve the dispute.
