Punjab Chief Minister Amrinder Singh warns completion of Satluj-Yamuna Link Canal would transform into national security problem

In the virtual meeting, which was attended by Union Minister Gajendra Singh and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Singh warned the situation in Punjab will also impact Rajasthan and Haryan, reported NDTV.

"You have to look at the issue from the national security perspective. If you decide to go ahead with SYL, Punjab will burn and it will become a national problem, with Haryana and Rajasthan also suffering the impact," Singh was quoted as saying by NDTV.

Today's meeting was held after the Supreme Court last month directed the two chief ministers to negotiate the issues surrounding the execution of the SYL canal, which has been pending completion since decades.

At the meeting, Singh repeated his demand for a tribunal to assess water availability in a time bound manner, even as he stuck to his demand of complete share of water for his state from the entire resource, including from River Yamuna.

He, however, said he was all for discussing the issue with his Haryana counterpart.

"Why would I not agree to give water if we had it," he said at the meeting, quoted NDTV.

The water dispute had started in 1966 when Punjab and Haryana came into existence.

Haryana demanded the major share of the water which Punjab denied saying there wasn't enough water.

In order to settle the dispute, the Indira Gandhi government, in 1975, divided the water between the two states by an executive order and commissioned the canal.

In 1982, Indira Gandhi started the construction of the canal. However, she was assassinated in 1984. In 1985, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had signed an accord with Shiromani Akali Dal Chief chief Harchand Singh Longowal for a new tribunal. In less than a month of signing the accord, Longowal was killed by militants.

In 1990, ML Sekhri and a Superintending Engineer Avtar Singh Aulakh, who had links with the project, were shot down by the militants.