Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek his intervention in resolving the Munak canal dispute and the Renuka dam controversy. The Munak canal stand-off is over the release of 80 MGD of water that Delhi claims while the Renuka Dam project that is to supply Delhi with 275 million gallons per day (MGD) of water. The release of water from Renuka Dam has been denied clearance by the Ministry of Environment and Forests due to the large-scale deforestation that the project would require.
Sources in the Delhi Government said that Dikshit reportedly urged the Prime Minister to constitute a Group of Ministers (GoMs) to resolve the issues. Dikshit had earlier written a letter to the Prime Minister on this issue. During the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) annual budget, Dikshit had also stated that she would meet Prime Minister on the Munak controversy as Haryana was not issuing water from the Munak canal.
Haryana is also unwilling to release the additional 80 MGD of water from Munak Canal claiming that it is being forced to give up its own share of water for Delhi. With no end in sight to the squabbling, the matter was referred to a Group of Ministers headed by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and there have been a series of meetings with officials from the States to work out a solution in the past few years.