Amritsar, May 18 — The Punjab government has reiterated before the Ravi and Beas Waters Tribunal that it cannot share any additional water from the two rivers with Haryana and Rajasthan, maintaining that both states do not fall within the basin area of the Ravi and Beas.
The stand was conveyed during the Punjab visit of the three-member tribunal headed by retired Justice Vineet Saran, which inspected key canal systems and headworks in the state.
Punjab officials told the tribunal that only Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir formed part of the Ravi-Beas basin area. They argued that despite this, Rajasthan continued to receive 50 per cent of the river waters under the 1955 water-sharing agreement.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann also met the tribunal members in Amritsar and is learnt to have outlined the state government’s efforts to maximise utilisation of available river waters.
During discussions with the delegation, Mann reportedly said the government was ensuring canal water reached tail-end farming areas to reduce dependence on groundwater and check desertification.
Officials of the Water Resources Department presented Punjab’s historical position on river water sharing, arguing that undivided Punjab had access to 176.37 million acre-feet (MAF) of water before Partition, which had reduced to 15.14 MAF from the eastern rivers of the Indus system after Partition and the reorganisation of states.
Punjab officials also argued that the state was excluded from sharing Yamuna waters despite being part of the inter-state river system.
According to the figures presented before the tribunal, of the 15.85 MAF water available in the Ravi and Beas rivers, Punjab receives 4.22 MAF, while Rajasthan gets 8.8 MAF and Haryana 3.5 MAF.
Officials further claimed Punjab received only 25 per cent of the surplus waters and had to abandon several canals because of inadequate allocation.
The tribunal delegation, which arrived in Amritsar earlier, also visited the Luther Canal system in Ferozepur, where officials pointed to areas allegedly affected by pollution caused by effluents from leather factories in Kasur, Pakistan.
The members later inspected the Harike headworks along with the Rajasthan feeder and Ferozepur feeder canals.