M A I N   N E W S

Hansi-Butana Canal
Apex court to re-examine issue
CWC report not acceptable to Punjab and Rajasthan
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 30
The Supreme Court today decided to re-examine the issue of the Hansi-Butana canal in Haryana after Punjab and Rajasthan pleaded that the Central Water Commission (CWC) had complicated the matter instead of giving a solution to the issue.

The Supreme Court will now hear the matter in detail and listen to the arguments of the three states. The court might even frame the questions that need to be addressed by it, while deciding the matter. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India K. G. Balakrishnan will hear the matter on May 14. One of the issue before the court is to decide if this was an inter-state dispute or not.

For Haryana, this is bad news, as the state cannot expect immediate relief and this will seemingly entail long litigation on the same lines as the pending litigation over the completion of the SYL since the 1980’s.

In August last year, the apex court had stayed the puncturing of the left bank of the Bhakra Main Line (BML) canal near Narwana in Haryana. The state wanted to connect the Hansi-Butana canal with the BML at this point. The stay was granted after Punjab and Rajasthan objected to it saying that the BML was an inter-state canal and the puncturing was a violation of the Bhakra-Nangal agreement, 1959.

The two states claimed that Haryana could not connect an outlet on its own despite the fact that the particular section of the BML to be punctured was in Haryana territory. The BML originates at the Bhakra dam and the three states share its waters.

Today the court was of the view that the CWC has not been able to respond to the queries raised by the SC, when the issue was referred to it for a report. Punjab claimed its land would be submerged while Rajasthan said the flow of water in the BML could drop and its share would be jeopardised if Haryana was allowed to puncture the BML.

The CWC in its report had said it had no objection to the canal. Punjab and Rajasthan had raised objection at this in the court as well as at a joint meeting of irrigation secretaries in November last year. Rather Punjab irrigation secretary Suresh Kumar had a 68-point rebuttal to the CWC report at this meeting.

One of the main fear of Punjab was that in case of rain, 20,756 acre of its land in 70 villages in areas bordering Haryana would be submerged and one lakh persons would be displaced. The canal would impede the natural down flow of water from the Shavlik foothills.

Punjab has also questioned the CWC as to how it could allow Haryana to construct the canal, when it did not allow Punjab to construct Dashmesh canal a few years ago that was also to draw Punjab’s own share of water from the BML near Anandpur Sahib.