Chandigarh, September 6- The Concrete and conscious efforts made by Haryana Chief Minister, Sh. Manohar Lal for resolving the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal has started yielding positive results.

A hearing in this matter was held in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, in which the Central Government informed the Court that the Punjab Government is not giving any cooperation in the matter.

The Central Government informed the Court that a letter was also written to Punjab’s new Chief Minister but he did not give any response. Now, the Supreme Court has directed the Central Government to organize a meeting of the Chief Ministers of both States and try to amicably resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, Sh. Manohar Lal has again clarified that the people of the state have the right over SYL waters and they are going to claim it at any cost.

“SYL water is very important for Haryana. On one hand, we are not getting this water, while on the other Delhi is demanding more water from us. Now fixing a deadline to resolve this issue at the earliest has become very essential,”  he said.

The Chief Minister said that the completion of the construction work of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal is long pending and an issue of great concern between Haryana and Punjab. Due to the non-completion of the SYL Canal, surplus, un-channeled water of Ravi, Sutlej and Beas is going to Pakistan.

“On the direction of the Supreme Court to resolve the SYL issue, Union Jal Shakti Minister on August 18, 2020 had called a meeting with the Chief Ministers of both the states but unfortunately Punjab is not taking any further action as per the decision taken in the said meeting,” said Chief Minister.

Notably, the Chief Minister through a demi-official letter dated May 6, 2022 had requested the Union Minister of Jal Shakti to convene the second-round meeting of the Chief Ministers of both the states at the earliest to discuss this issue. Besides this, he had also written a demi-official letter to Home Minister, Sh. Amit Shah, requesting him to organize a meeting of the Chief Ministers of both the states over the same issue.

Earlier also Sh. Manohar Lal had written three demi-official letters to the Punjab Chief Minister for this meeting, but no response was received from his side.