Whose water is it? Punjab's river waters and the SYL canal

The claim: The water is shared by law, and Punjab owes Haryana a canal. Haryana's case is that it is a successor to undivided Punjab and lies in the Indus basin, so it holds a share (The Tribune, 2004 and 2025), as fixed by the Centre in 1976, by the agreement of 31 December 1981 and by the Eradi Tribunal in 1987. Then Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar called the canal "the lifeline of Haryana and the right of the people of Haryana" and said Punjab uses about 1.9 million acre-feet (MAF) of Haryana's share (The Tribune, 2023). Haryana says it has built its stretch and that Punjab's refusal lets water flow on to Pakistan (The Tribune, 2002).

The sourced facts:

• The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty made all the waters of the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi "available for the unrestricted use of India" (Article II(1)).
• The surplus Ravi-Beas water was first allocated in January 1955: of 15.85 MAF, Punjab with PEPSU 7.20, Rajasthan 8.00, Jammu and Kashmir 0.65 (SANDRP). After Haryana's creation in 1966 the Centre fixed 3.5 MAF for it on 24 March 1976, the successor states having failed to agree. The agreement of 31 December 1981 among Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan counted 17.17 MAF: Punjab 4.22, Haryana 3.50, Rajasthan 8.60, Delhi 0.20, Jammu and Kashmir 0.65 (Supreme Court, 2016; Ministry of Jal Shakti).
• Indira Gandhi broke ground at Kapoori on 8 April 1982 and the Akali Dal began a morcha there (The Tribune, 2014). Clause 9.3 of the 1985 Accord set 15 August 1986 for completing the canal (Ministry of Jal Shakti). The Eradi Tribunal reported on 30 January 1987: Punjab 5.00 and Haryana 3.83 MAF of 18.28. It said Punjab's theory that non-riparian states have no claim "cannot be supported in law and/or under the Constitution" (The Tribune, 2002 and 2025).
• Work stopped in July 1990 after a chief engineer and a superintending engineer were killed. The Court ordered completion in 2002 and dismissed Punjab's suit in June 2004; Punjab then cancelled its water agreements by an Act of 12 July 2004. On 10 November 2016 a bench answered the Presidential Reference against Punjab: a party cannot undo a decree by its own law (Supreme Court, 2016). The Ministry of Jal Shakti notes the Act was not struck down on any party's prayer.
• Punjab says flows have shrunk and wants a new tribunal (K.B.S. Sidhu); its counsel told the Court in 2025 the decree assumed enough water. The bench criticised Punjab's "highhandedness" over the canal land but said such matters "cannot be decided only on (the basis of) law" (The Tribune). In August 2026 the Court heard the states were making progress towards settlement (India Legal).
• Punjab's groundwater extraction was India's highest in 2025, 156.36 per cent (Rajya Sabha reply, ETV Bharat).

The Panthic answer: The Akali conference at Ludhiana in 1978 called the Emergency-era Ravi-Beas award "arbitrary and unjust" and asked that control of the headworks stay with Punjab (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism). Punjab's standing argument, reported by The Tribune in 2002, is that among the parties only Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir are riparian states. The SGPC executive under Harjinder Singh Dhami resolved in October 2023 that "no one would be allowed to loot the waters of Punjab", and Dhami said Punjab's water goes to Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi uncompensated, against international riparian law. The Sarbat Khalsa at Sri Akal Takht Sahib on 26 January 1986 declared that no other state's right in Punjab's waters, power and dams would be accepted and that attempts to take them through the Bhakra Dam, the Beas-Sutlej link, the Rajasthan Feeder and the Sutlej-Yamuna link would be foiled (Panthic Dastavez, p. 163).

Bhai Ajmer Singh holds that the Bhakra Beas Management Board was set up unconstitutionally. In Vihveen Sadi Di Sikh Rajneeti (ch. 7) he treats Sections 78 and 79 of the 1966 reorganisation law, which took control of Punjab's river waters, as unconstitutional, and in ch. 9 he describes the failure of Akali policy over water after 1966. For him water is one of the points on which the 1966 settlement left Punjab short, and the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ch. 13) answered them.