Looking back
J&K Government and Government of Punjab way back in 1979 agreed for water sharing and for compensating each other on the sharing of waters from river Ravi. According to that agreement, Kathua and Samba districts by this time should have been on the forefront for the green revolution. After some years due to the criminal negligence by the bureaucracy of J&K Government, the government of Punjab decided not to adhere to the agreement signed with the State Government.
While expressing satisfaction over the signing of the agreement between the two government, former Irrigation and Flood Control Minister Taj Mohi-ud-Din said that during his tenure as Minister in-charge he took the matter to the Central Government to the State Cabinet and also finally told Punjab government that they will be taken to Court for not adhering to an water sharing agreement. He said that 1.33 lakh hectares of land from Kathua to Jammu would be irrigated by these waters from Punjab. He further disclosed that during Congress-National Conference coalition government he mooted a proposal for the construction of the canal without any financial aid from Punjab Government at the cost of Rs 600 crores, but it was not approved by Omar Abdullah Cabinet. He said that already J&K State has suffered the losses of about Rs 2000 crores because of delay by the Punjab Government. He said that Governor’s administration should rethink about getting only Rs. 115 crores as compensation against the losses of Rs. 2000 crores.
The present Chief Secretary should have looked very keenly at the losses suffered by the J&K State due to the non-compliance by the Punjab government. He should have told them that J&K State should be compensated to the tune of Rs 2000 crores and his agreement only for Rs 115 crores of compensation shows that he has not applied the mind and has not bothered about the losses suffered by the State in the past so many decades.
