`Amarinder or no Amarinder, SYL will become a national problem if verdict goes against us’, says Punjab CM
Chandigarh: “Amarinder rahe na rahe, SYL will become a national problem if the final judgement goes against Punjab,” Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh warned on Monday, asserting that any move to deprive the people of the state of their water rights could lead to the revival of militancy in the region. The Chief Minister was speaking at the launch of India News (Punjab) channel where he said that he had requested the Union Home Minister to start negotiations on the SYL issue through the Water Resources department in the interest of Punjab’s and India’s peace and stability. Punjab would be pushed back to its dark days of terrorism if the SYL resolution does not address the state’s concerns, said Captain Amarinder, adding that any such negative development could lead to a major crisis in the state. He pointed out that all extremist movements in the state, including the Khalistani, Naxalite and Mujhaira movements, had started from southern Punjab, which would be the worst affected by the construction of SYL canal. Haryana got more water despite having less land, while Punjab did not get any share of water from river Yamuna, he pointed out, adding that the root of the problem could be traced to the state’s partition and the lopsided allocation of its resources at that time. Punjab has no water to nourish and irrigate its own land, leave alone share with other states, said the Chief Minister, pointing out that with less than 25% irrigation through surface water, agriculture in the state had become unviable. Costs of inputs have increased, but there has been no commensurate increase in the MSP of crops, he added, underlining the need for large-scale crop diversification, given the critical water situation in the state. We just do not have sufficient water to irrigate paddy crops, he observed. Promising to make farming remunerative again for the state’s farmers, the Chief Minister said his government was working on several initiatives to facilitate diversification and bring in a new green revolution, not just with wheat and paddy but with other crops. Captain Amarinder recalled the `farm to fork’ project, which he had launched with Reliance during his earlier chief ministerial tenure, and said his government was reviving the same to alleviate the sufferings of Punjab’s beleaguered debt-ridden farmers. He reiterated his commitment to bring the farmers of the state out of the abyss into which they had been plunged in the last 10 years of the SAD-BJP mismanagement and misrule.
