Punjab Reorganization Bill introduced

Who: Parliament and Indira Gandhi's government; Sardar Hukam Singh, who secured a unanimous vote for a Punjabi Suba in the Parliamentary Committee; and Sant Fateh Singh and the Akali Dal, who had pressed the demand.

What: The steps, in order, as the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism records them:

• 9 March 1966: the Congress Working Committee adopted a motion for a Punjabi-speaking state.
• 15 March 1966: the Parliamentary Committee handed in its report, made public on 18 March.
• 23 April 1966: Indira Gandhi conceded the demand and a commission was appointed to demarcate Punjab and Haryana.
• 3 September 1966: the Punjab Reorganization Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha.
• 1 November 1966: the "appointed day" fixed by Section 2(b) of the Act.

The Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 formed a new State of Haryana (Section 3) and a new Union territory of Chandigarh (Section 4), and provided for the transfer of territory to Himachal Pradesh (Section 5).

Sections 78 to 80 dealt with the Bhakra-Nangal and Beas projects, and they left the Centre in control. Under Section 78 rights and liabilities, including the right to receive and use the water the projects made available, pass to the successor States by agreement, or by an order of the Central Government if they did not agree within two years. Section 79 required the Central Government to constitute a Bhakra Management Board, "under the control of the Central Government". Section 80 provided that the Beas Project would be built by the Central Government on behalf of the successor States, through a Beas Construction Board.

Where: New Delhi, in the Lok Sabha; the Act applied to Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.

Why it mattered: It was the legislative step that gave the Akali Dal its Punjabi-speaking state after about fifteen years of agitation. It also fixed the two issues that would be argued over for decades: Chandigarh, whose allocation the Encyclopaedia calls unresolved, and the river waters and headworks, which the Encyclopaedia says "still continue to rankle in the Punjabi consciousness".