Why Sutlej-Yamuna Link row is pure political rhetoric
Amid the deafening uproar right down the 214km length of the unfinished Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, in both Punjab and neighboring Haryana, it is now official – that the raging row over the canal may just be pure political rhetoric.
The kind that is only likely to grow more vociferous as Punjab heads into an Assembly election that will be critical to the survival of all the three major players – the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party combine; the Congress and the "new kid on the block", Aam Admi Party.
Violently opposed politicians in Haryana and Punjab raise decibel levels over whether the SYL should be completed, or, it ought to be filled up and forgotten. And farmers, depending on which side of the interstate border they’re coming from, respond with equally suitable fervour.
But everyone seems to be missing the point – the strategic significance of water as a resource and the dire need to conserve it.
Consider the evidence on the ground: A November 2016 report by experts at the Center for Research in Rural & Industrial Development, a Chandigarh-based think tank that’s also been involved, among other things, in track-two diplomacy between India and Pakistan, reveals an abysmally low concern on water conservation amid all sections for whom water is a lifeline.
CRRID’s study on water use pattern and its sustainability in Punjab shows that even farmers, who would be impacted the most by the SYL, make almost no effort to conserve water.
Despite wide awareness about the state’s rapidly declining groundwater table, 79 per cent Punjabi farmers do nothing to manage water resources better. Only 11 per cent have put in some manner of rainwater harvesting.
It gets even more depressing. 96 per cent of all existing industrial units in the state, and 91 per cent domestic households too do not harvest rainwater.
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| Despite wide awareness about the state’s rapidly declining groundwater table, 79 per cent Punjabi farmers do nothing to manage water resources better. |
Chandigarh-based developmental economist Sucha Singh Gill, who is also associated with the CRRID, says successive governments in both Punjab and Haryana have consistently refused to look at any real water management practices. This incredulously, while they constantly raise the din over the SYL canal.
Consider this: With 14 lakh tubewells, close to 74 per cent of Punjab’s agrarian water needs are met from groundwater. Rivers and canals account for just 26 per cent!
Gill says the situation in Haryana is roughly the same with some of its southern districts being severely water-stressed. Despite knowing this, the economist says that no political leader, party or state government has even remotely considered improving water-use efficiency as a solution.
And here’s the kicker: Gill says, “a 15 to 20 per cent” improvement in water use efficiency can compensate both Haryana and Punjab for the quantum of Ravi-Beas waters they are squabbling over. Water experts have been crying themselves hoarse that it is doable and very likely the only solution in the face of a looming water crisis across India’s legendary wheat bowl.
Sadly, no one is listening.
So why in their poll speeches, are chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, Captain Amarinder Singh and the AAP only speaking of preventing flow of “even a drop of water” through the SYL?