3 months ago
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Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his Haryana counterpart Nayab Singh Saini met successful Chandigarh connected Tuesday (January 27, 2026) to sermon the long-pending Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue.
The gathering betwixt the Chief Ministers, which began astatine a edifice successful Chandigarh and is attended by elder officers of some the governments, is inactive nether way.
The SYL canal contented has been a bony of contention betwixt the 2 States for the past respective years. Last May, the Supreme Court directed the 2 States to cooperate with the Centre for an amicable solution to the decades-old dispute. In a caller hearing, the apical tribunal had fixed the adjacent day of proceeding successful the substance successful April.
The SYL canal was conceptualised for the effectual sharing of h2o from Ravi and Beas rivers betwixt the 2 States. The task envisages a 214-km canal, of which a 122 km agelong was to beryllium constructed successful Punjab and the remaining 92 km successful Haryana.
Haryana has completed the task successful its territory, but Punjab, which launched the enactment successful 1982, shelved it.
With the quality lingering connected for decades, the apical tribunal connected January 15, 2002 ruled successful favour of Haryana successful a suit filed by the State successful 1996 and directed the Punjab Government to conception its information of the SYL canal.
The Punjab Government has been maintaining that the State has nary surplus h2o for others and demanding its morganatic stock of the Indus waters.
The Haryana Government besides has been demanding its stock of the rivers' water, which it said it was not getting owed to non-construction of the SYL canal.
Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal issue: Impasse continues arsenic gathering remains inconclusive
Following Supreme Court directions, Union Jal Shakti Minister C.R. Patil had convened a gathering of Mr. Mann and Mr. Saini successful connected July 9 to code the long-standing issue. Later, helium convened different gathering of some the Chief Ministers connected August 5, 2025.
In 1 of the meetings, Mr. Mann had urged the Centre to utilise the Chenab River h2o to resoluteness the quality and sought scrapping of the SYL canal project.
He had besides mooted the thought of a Yamuna Sutlej Link (YSL) canal alternatively of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, stating that Sutlej has already dried up and not a azygous driblet of its h2o could beryllium shared.
“Rather, h2o from the Ganga and Yamuna rivers should beryllium supplied to Punjab done the Sutlej,” Mr. Mann had said, highlighting the SYL canal arsenic an "emotive issue".
