Demanding royalty from other states for taking Punjab’s water, the State main opposition — Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its ally lok Insaf Party (lIP) — on Tuesday staged a peaceful protest in front of the State civil secretariat.
The legislators of the two parties, including leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Simarjeet Singh Bains, Aman Arora, Balwinder Singh Bains and Kanwar Sandhu, demanded that the Congress government should implement a resolution passed by the State Assembly on the issue of river water royalty.
Khaira said that during the previous SAD-BJP regime, the Bains brothers had raised the issue of sharing Punjab’s river waters with Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi and that the Assembly had, then, unanimously passed a resolution to demand royalty from these states.
“From then onwards, no action has been taken in this regard and the AAP and lIP have decided to push the matter by holding peaceful protests,” Khaira said.
He added that as per the international riparian law, these states had to pay royalty on the water used by them.
lIP president Simarjeet Singh Bains said that Punjab had been sharing over 12 million acre feet of water with Rajasthan since 1965, the cost of which had been worked out at Rs 16 lakh crore.