By IANS,
Chandigarh : The Haryana government is committed to secure for the state its legitimate share of river waters through the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal, Governor Jagannath Pahadia said Friday.
“We are already working in this direction and very soon this issue will be sorted out,” Pahadia said in his address to the Haryana legislative assembly on the first day of the budget session.
Water sharing through SYL Canal has been a controversial issue between Punjab and Haryana with the latter seeking completion of the canal, started in the early 1980s, and Punjab opposing the move. The canal, built in parts of Punjab, has never been allowed to carry waters from the state’s rivers to Haryana.
Pahadia also announced a complete ban on mining in the Faridabad, Gurgaon and Mewat districts for a period of ten years.
“This would ensure that the scarce natural resources are not exploited in an injudicious manner. Besides this ban, we have already initiated steps for the preparation of a 30-year perspective mining plan for the state,” he said.
On the state’s crop production, Pahadia said that “despite the adverse climatic conditions and below normal rainfall”, the state succeeded in harvesting a bumper crop with 46.53 lakh tonnes of food grain during kharif (autumn crop) 2009, as against 44.88 lakh tonnes produced in 2008.