Ravi waters to Pak: Centre to hold meeting on Oct 6

Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 30

The Union Government has convened a meeting of Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir officers concerned to discuss the issue of Ravi waters flowing into Pakistan on October 6 at New Delhi.

To stop the flow to Pakistan, a balancing reservoir was to be constructed at Shahpur Kandi, but the work on this project was abandoned about two years ago following objections raised by the J&K Government.

Sources said the Centre had asked Punjab Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal and his counterpart from J&K to attend the October 6 meeting.

Earlier, a number of meetings on this issue have been held between the Punjab and J&K officers during the past six months but these failed to break the deadlock on the resumption of the work on the Shahpur Kandi project.

The Punjab Government has been insisting that the work should be resumed at the earliest to complete the project as it will benefit both states. The J&K government has been saying that the Punjab Government had terminated the river waters sharing agreement in 2004 and hence all agreements signed by it with J&K are no more valid.

However, Punjab has been arguing that the agreements were terminated only with non-riparian states. As J&K is a co-riparian state, the water-sharing agreements are very much valid with it. This argument is expected to be given again by the Punjab Government at the meeting.