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SYL canal issue has been a bone of contention between Punjab and Haryana (File)

Chandigarh:

Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will be holding a meeting with chief ministers of Haryana and Punjab here on Thursday on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal issue.

According to a Haryana government statement on Wednesday, Gajendra Shekhawat will hold the meeting to address the long-standing Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal (SYL) issue.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann will be attending the meeting, it said.

Manohar Lal Khattar had recently written a letter to Bhagwant Mann and had expressed readiness to hold a meeting to resolve any obstacles or issues related to the SYL canal’s construction.

Bhagwant Mann too had earlier this month said that he would attend the meeting, but asserted that the state has no spare water to share with any other state.

The SYL canal issue has been a bone of contention between Punjab and Haryana for the past several years.

The canal was conceptualised for effective sharing of water between the two states from the Ravi and Beas rivers. The project envisages a 214-kilometre canal, of which a 122-kilometre stretch is to be constructed in Punjab and the remaining 92 kilometres in Haryana.

Haryana government wants the implementation of the Supreme Court verdict on the construction of SYL canal.

The Supreme Court had on October 4 asked the Centre to survey the portion of land in Punjab which the state was allocated for the construction of part of the SYL canal and make an estimate of the extent of construction carried out there.

Haryana has completed the project in its territory but Punjab, which launched the work in 1982, shelved it. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)