Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal Controversy

There is a portion of it in Punjab that is 122 kilometres long, while the remaining 92 kilometres are in Haryana.

It begins at the village of Palla, which is located close to Delhi.

According to the terms of the water sharing agreement, the canal, which was built with the capability of transporting up to 10, 500 cusecs of water, will only be able to transport 6, 500 cusecs of water from Punjab to Haryana.

The canal enters Haryana close to Kapoori village in Patiala district close to the point where it branches off from the end of the Anandpur Sahib Hydel Channel near Lohand Khad. This point is located a few miles away from Kiratpur Sahib in Ropar district.

In addition to transferring water, the canal will meet the villages in the districts of Rupar and Patiala that rely on agriculture for their livelihood by providing irrigation services.

In addition, there are plans for two hydroelectric power generation projects.

Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal dispute

The Satluj Yamuna Link Canal, also known as SYL due to its popular name, is a canal that will connect the Yamuna and Sutlej rivers in India and is currently under development to be 214 kilometres long and 133 miles long. But there were some problems with the proposal, so it was brought before the highest court in India. This was characterised as the distribution of river water between the two states of Punjab & Haryana.The Indus basin was split in half when India was divided into Pakistan and India in 1947. India was given the upper reaches of the Indus river as well as its tributaries, whereas Pakistan was given the southern end of the Indus river and its tributaries. Because of this, a situation arose in which the usage and management of water supplies in one nation had a negative impact on those activities in another one. Activities had already begun in India in expectation of a treaty prior to the beginning of the discussions in 1954 to settle the issue, which were still ongoing at the time. In spite of the fact that the Bhakra Nangal project was successful in resolving the problem of water in the Sutlej river, the problem of surplus water in the Ravi and Beas rivers, omitting their use before the partition, continued to exist.

The purpose of link canals

In 1966, the formation of Haryana from the previously undivided Punjab posed the challenge of allocating sufficient river water to the new state of Haryana.It was planned to build a canal that would connect the Sutlej with the Yamuna so that Haryana could have its good proportion of the waters of the Sutlej as well as its feeder river, the Beas (SYL Canal).The state of Punjab refused to share its water resources with the neighbouring state of Haryana, citing the riparian principle as the reason for its refusal. This principle states that such water of a river relates to only the state and country or states and countries which the river in dilemma flows through. Punjab’s refusal to share the water violated this principle.In 1981, both states came to an agreement with one another about the redistribution of water.In 1982, work on the 214-kilometer SYL began in the village of Kapoori in the Indian state of Punjab.As a form of protest, various agitations, protests, and even assassinations were carried out. This created an atmosphere of terrorism within the state and elevated the issue to the level of a threat to national security.

What is Beas Satluj Link canal

Dr. A.N. Khosla, a wonderful engineer as well as energetic leader in the profession who was also a nearer as well as trusted confidante of Jawaharlal Nehru, came up with the idea of creating a link between the rivers Beas and Satluj by rerouting some of the water from the river Beas into the Satluj river via two tunnels and an open channel in order to produce electricity and also to boost the storage space of Bhakra reservoir (Gobind Sagar). This would

Beas Sutlej Link Project’s preliminary investigations began in 1956, and resulted in the production of a project initiation report by the Project Organization of the Punjab Irrigation Branch in November 1957.

Conclusion

The canal is that it would facilitate shipping between India’s east and west coasts, which would result in a significant cut in the costs associated with freight transportation.

The digging started in 1984. In the decade of the 1990s, a significant portion of the canal was constructed in the state of Punjab at a cost of approximately 750 billion rupees. There is only a small portion left to finish, and each of those pieces has its own narrative to tell.

The neglected canal, on the other hand, is nearly in ruins at this point, with the brick lining flaking off in some parts and shrubs encroaching the channel, both of which cause flooding and destruction during the wet season.

The Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966, which is a piece of central legislation, established the Bhakra-Beas Management Board abbreviated as BBMB. This board is responsible for managing the canal like the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation act, creating Telangana.