CHANDIGARH: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is all set to meet his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann in connection with the Sutlej-Yamuna Link  canal on October 14 in Chandigarh.

"We would make every effort to reach an amicable agreement with the chief minister of Punjab. The Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) issue has also been brought up numerous times before the Center. We have a claim to the SYL waters, and we will defend that claim fiercely," an official statement quoting Khattar said.

He further stated the significance of SYL water to Haryana.

While opening the recently renovated media centre at the Haryana Civil Secretariat here, he said, "Now fixing a deadline to settle this issue at the earliest has become very crucial."

The second round conference between the Chief Ministers of both states should be scheduled as soon as possible to discuss the river water issue, the Haryana Chief Minister requested in a demi-official letter to Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat dated May 6.

Khattar had also requested that a meeting of the chief ministers of both states be arranged in a demi-official letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

For the meeting, Khattar had sent the Punjab Chief Minister three semi-official letters.

In order to receive its fair share of the 3.5 million acre-feet of river resources, Haryana has been pushing for the construction of the SYL canal, while Punjab has been calling for a reevaluation of the volume of the Ravi-Beas river flows.

On September 6, the Centre notified the Supreme Court that the Punjabi government was "not cooperating" in the dispute's resolution.

Attorney General K K Venugopal had earlier informed the bench that the Centre was attempting to bring the two states together through its Water Resources Ministry after the Supreme Court had asked for a peaceful resolution in 2017.
The state government of Punjab, however, had expressed a strong desire to settle the dispute amicably to a bench presided over by Justice S K Kaul last month, according to the state's attorney.

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