The North News
Ropar, February 7
Several farmers on Friday staged a protest on the busy Ropar-Anandpur Sahib Road here against the visit of a Ravi-Beas Water Tribunal delegation, disrupting vehicular movement for several hours.
The protesters blocked the road near Bunga Sahib, forcing police to divert traffic through alternate routes. They raised slogans against the tribunal and the state government.
As a result, members of the tribunal were unable to visit Lohand Khad near Kiratpur Sahib, officials said.
The tribunal, constituted under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, is tasked with adjudicating matters related to the distribution of Ravi and Beas river waters between Punjab and its neighbouring states.
The farmers said they were opposing the tribunal’s proceedings, claiming that its recommendations could adversely affect Punjab’s rights over its river waters.
The Centre last year extended the deadline for the tribunal to submit its report by another year, pushing the new date to August 5, 2026.
Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal hit out at the ruling Aam Aadmi Party government.
“The sell-out of Punjab’s river waters is becoming even clearer with the @AAPPunjab govt becoming a party to facilitating the visit of the Central Tribunal team to rob Punjab of its river waters,” Badal said in a post on X.
“This proves that @AamAadmiParty is trying to execute its conspiracy to transfer Punjab’s river waters to Haryana through the SYL canal,” he said in the post.
He alleged that the AAP was conspiring to divert Punjab’s river waters to Haryana through the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, and asserted that the SAD stood firmly with the protesting farmers.
“We will not allow even a single extra drop of water to be transferred to Haryana. For @BhagwantMann’s information: S. Parkash Singh Ji Badal’s govt permanently settled the #SYL issue by denotifying the canal and returning the land to the owners/farmers,” Badal said.
According to a gazette notification issued by the Ministry of Jal Shakti last year, the government cited the “exigencies of the work involved”, as flagged by the tribunal, for the extension.
The tribunal was originally formed on April 2, 1986, and submitted its initial report to the central government on January 30, 1987.
However, further references and clarifications were sought by the Centre later that year, prompting an ongoing review process that has now spanned nearly four decades.
