Thaindian News

Chandigarh, July 7 (IANS) They have fought a political war of words over territory, water sharing and even on their respective claims to Chandigarh. But now Punjab and Haryana are fighting over a new thing - a concrete wall.

The Punjab assembly polls are just over eight months away (February-March) and so the controversial concrete wall, being built by Haryana within its territory, has started ruffling political feathers in Punjab.

The 3.75-km-long concrete wall is being built by Haryana along the Hansi-Butana canal next to the Ghaggar river in Kaithal district. It is expected to help secure an embankment on the canal. The area is close to some villages in Punjab’s Patiala district. Punjab fears that the wall may flood its villages.

Janmeja Singh Sekhon, Punjab’s irrigation minister, who visited the site of the wall last month, has now sought registration of a criminal case against Haryana irrigation and drainage department officials who are building the wall along the canal.

This is a new controversy after the equally controversial canal. Haryana is seeking more water from Punjab for the canal for its parched southwestern part and both states are locked in a bitter battle in the Supreme Court over this.

“These officials are misleading their government and playing with the lives of over 20,000 people living in parts of Patiala district and nearby areas of Haryana. The Hansi-Butana canal had during floods last year acted as a barrier against the natural flow of flood waters of the Ghaggar river,” Sekhon told IANS.

Parkash Singh Badal, heading the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Punjab, wrote twice to his Haryana counterpart Bhupinder Singh Hooda, opposing the construction of the wall and the canal.

The Congress government in Haryana denies receiving the second letter which Punjab says it sent in June.

Haryana says the first letter in May was written after Punjab opposition leader and former chief minister Amarinder Singh accused Badal of not objecting to the concrete wall being built by Haryana.

Reacting to the letter row, Haryana Irrigation Minister Harmohinder Singh Chattha claimed that Hooda had received only one letter from Punjab.

Chattha said in a statement: “The Haryana chief minister has not received any letter from (his) Punjab counterpart after the first letter written on May 18, 2011, to which the reply was sent June 2, 2011. He said that Punjab has since filed an Interlocutory Application No.7 in the Supreme Court of India, which has been listed twice and despite efforts made by Punjab, it has not got any relief from the Supreme Court as it was not made out.”

Hooda, in his reply to Badal, had mentioned that “Punjab was unnecessarily making the strengthening of Ghaggar bundh (embankment) a political issue due to impending state elections”.

Chattha said it was evident from the fact that the Punjab chief minister’s letter was written on the day when the statement made by Punjab Congress Chief Amarinder Singh appeared in the newspapers.

“Punjab did not raise the issue earlier while the Punjab engineers came to know of the work when the tender for the work was initially called on March 7, 2011, and advertisement for the same appeared in several important dailies,” Chattha said.

“Punjab did not react even when the work was allotted in April 2011. No issue was made by Punjab till the opposition leader’s statement was published in leading dailies. It proves that the issue was unnecessarily being politicized,” he added.

Chattha said that it is well known and documented that the Ghaggar basin is prone to floods but Punjab was making noises only now.

“These floods have occurred many times in the past, prior to construction of Hansi-Butana canal and perhaps once after the construction of canal. It would be wrong to attribute the floods in Haryana as well as Punjab to the construction of Hansi-Butana link canal. The floods happened due to the construction of embankments on the Ghaggar side,” Chattha said.

Chattha said: “It does not behove Punjab to raise an issue about the bundh, which has been existing since 1950s. These are constructed to stop the water from flowing to the other side.”

Punjab has refused to spare any more water for Haryana, saying the state itself does not have enough water. The Punjab government headed by Amarinder Singh in 2004 had terminated the water sharing agreement with Haryana and other states.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)