Badal says Punjab govt carrying out survey to construct canal, dept says ‘building capacity of officers’

Posting screenshots on X, Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal alleged that the Bhagwant Mann-led government has issued an order to activate a live portal to conduct a survey for the canal’s construction.

Raking up Mann’s challenge to the Opposition for a debate on November 1, Badal said that even as “puppet CM Bhagwant Mann was trying to divert Punjabis’ attention from the real river waters issue”, a “clinching evidence of his true motive” has come out.

“He has issued an order today to activate a live portal to conduct a survey for the construction of the SYL canal. To hide this conspiracy and befool Punjabis, the item on SYL survey has been mentioned as item number 32 of the order on ‘river water resources’…This is done so that no one can notice it,” Badal said on X.

Stating that Akali Dal “will never allow this survey to be conducted”, he demanded that the government “withdraw this order immediately or be ready to face the anger of whole of Punjab.”

In its clarification, however, Water Resources department said it is undertaking every possible effort to educate and sensitise the people regarding the inter-state issue.

“As the inter-state water disputes remain a very important part of the department and many engineers being recently recruited were unaware of this issue. No such effort to build the capacity of the officers was ever made in the past on such an issue, which is so important to Punjab,” the department said in a statement.

“Therefore, in order to strongly defend the SYL case and to sensitise every engineer as well as general public of the state regarding the importance of the matter and looking out for the interest of Punjab, it was decided that the officers, particularly the young officers, shall submit a note, including the history, pre-Partition status, existing agreements, present water scenario and the future suggestions, in dealing with water scarcity and inter-state dispute issue in the best interest of the state,” it added.

For this purpose, the SYL canal survey module was launched on the department’s portal in February, according to the statement.

Earlier in the day, Cabinet ministers Harpal Cheema and Aman Arora the Punjab government will not allow any central team to enter state and survey the portion of land allocated for the construction of the SYL canal — something that the Supreme Court has directed the Centre to do.

They made the remarks after being asked if Punjab government had received any intimation about a likely central team visit to conduct the survey.

“We have no information whether the team will come on November 1. But we will not allow the team to enter Punjab,” Cheema said while talking to reporters after a Cabinet meeting.

“There is no information about the team. I do not think it is scheduled. But if the Shiromani Akali Dal leaders have told the Centre to send the team on November 1, then we do not know. But we will not allow the team to enter Punjab. This is for sure,” Arora said.

Akali Dal leader Prem Singh Chandumajra on Friday had claimed that central survey teams would arrive in Punjab on November 1. “We have learnt that central survey teams are expected to come to Punjab on November 1,” Chandumajra had said.

The Supreme Court on October 4 had asked the Centre to survey the portion of land in Punjab which was allocated for the construction of the SYL canal and make an estimate of the extent of construction carried out. The survey is to be conducted within a month.

Of the total 214-km length of SYL canal, 122 km was to be constructed in Punjab and the remaining 92 km in Haryana. Haryana has completed the project in its territory but Punjab, which launched the work in 1982, had shelved it subsequently.