Centre to hold meeting of states to discuss river water issue

Chandigarh, May 12 (PTI) The Centre will soon hold a meeting of the states, including Punjab and Haryana, to resolve the contentious issue of sharing of river water between them.
"The Ministry of Water Resources will soon call a meeting of the affected states, including Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, to discuss river water issue," Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh said here today.
During the meeting, he said that the states concerned reached a consensus that the issue of sharing of river water, which has been pending for several years, needs to be resolved.
"There is consensus among all the states and they want it (river water issue) to be resolved.
As there are a lot of nitty gritty involved, the Ministry of Water Resources has called a meeting of the states concerned to resolve it following a detailed discussion," Secretary of Inter-state council Secretariat, Sanjeevani Kutty said.
On April 20, in a meeting of Chief Secretaries of both Punjab and Haryana with Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, Punjab had expressed inability to share water with its neighbouring states and sought a realistic solution while Haryana demanded completion of construction of incomplete parts of the SYL canal at the earliest.
In todays meeting, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh urged Singh and the chief ministers of Haryana and Rajasthan to settle this issue out of court through discussion with the intervention of Ministry of Water Resources.
Punjab CS said Amarinder also sought sharing of intelligence among neighbouring states and fast prosecution to deal with drug problem in the state.
"Amarinder also sought time bound action plan to deal with problem of pollution in Ghaggar and Sutlej rivers," said Punjab CS.
Out of 18 issues discussed today, seven issues were resolved, said a PIB release.

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