The ground reality: falling levels of groundwater

The latest stand of the Akali Dal that Clause 5 be deleted from the statute and the supply of water to Haryana and Rajasthan be completely stopped, even to those farmers who have been using it for decades, is neither legally feasible nor morally justified. Legally, it is possible to bypass a judgement, decree or order of a court by removing the total premises of the judgement by appropriate legislation, but it is not legally permitted to retrospectively take away the vested rights of the citizen, more so when they are not even citizens of your own state.

Punjab has 17 districts. About 10 of these do not get any canal water. They irrigate through tubewells. Ground water has fallen to dangerously low levels. An unofficial but fairly detailed survey conducted by The Tribune management had found that at most places, water level has gone down from 20 to 30 ft. After few years it may not remain possible to irrigate by this method either.

Besides, large tracts of land in about five districts do not get water either from tubewells or canals. These solely depend on the rains.

Pranab Mukherjee is a senior and respected leader of the Congress. Yet he shows his negligence of the realities of Punjab when he said to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, ‘‘When you belong to an all-India party and on an issue which affects the interests of more than one state, your actions and observations should be in conformity with the stand of an all-India party’’. Surprisingly, he did not say what the stand of the Congress on this issue was.

Today, we have about 550 political parties in India. When national leaderships get involved in what should be regional negotiations, they sometimes lose their way. As far as the SYL dispute is concerned, it is counterproductive to keep blaming Punjab. As Chief Minister, Amarinder is duty bound to safeguard the interests of his own state. During the paddy-sowing season, canals which irrigated Punjab land were almost empty but the canals which irrigated Haryana and Rajasthan were full to the brim. If there is a shortage of water across states, then why should Punjab be the only sufferer?

Punjab is passing through a tense situation today. The events of the next few months will determine whether the state is going to maintain its lead in agriculture or not. And lets face it, the livelihoods of migrants from many states depend on the agricultural prosperity of Punjab.

The presidential reference of 2004 has put off the problem for a while, but judicial pronouncements rarely solve problems. The ground realities of 2004 are not the same as what they were in 1947, at the time of Independence. Any compromise arrived at on the basis of data that existed in the days of Partition of the country cannot be enforced against the new generation of 2004.

The need is to constitute a committee of impartial agricultural and geological experts who can collect the latest data from all states and also examine the feasibility of new methods of irrigation, along with changes and diversifications in crop patterns, to strive for an amicable solution.

In the SYL dispute, a solution will be impossible if we depend on the law, the Constitution or judicially constituted agreements.

We need a solution to emerge organically from the soil.

The writer is an advocate based in Chandigarh