AMRITSAR, May 18, 2026 – During the detailed presentation to the Ravi and Beas Waters Tribunal, the Punjab government stated that acute internal shortages and geographical constraints make any upward revision of river water shares for neighboring states impossible.
The administrative briefing coincided with a field inspection by tribunal members Justice Vineet Saran, Justice Suman Shyam, and Justice P. Naveen Rao at the Harike headworks—the key confluence point of the Sutlej and Beas rivers. Punjab authorities argued that the current distribution formula, which transfers 50 percent of the river volume to Rajasthan under a 1955 treaty, ignores the foundational principle that water rights should remain tied to the immediate basin geography.
Water resource officials asserted that the state receives only 25 percent of the system’s surplus volume, a restriction that undermines local agricultural sustainability and accelerates the drop in underground water tables.
“Before Partition, undivided Punjab had access to 176.37 million acre-feet of water, which has now reduced to 15.14 MAF from the eastern rivers of the Indus river system,” a senior department representative declared.
Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann hosted the visiting tribunal members to outline the state’s domestic supply challenges, noting that local agricultural networks are operating under heavy resource strain. Mann declared that maximizing canal utilization is the state’s primary defense against a worsening groundwater crisis in rural belts.
The inspection teams traveled along the Rajasthan and Ferozepur feeder canals to review flow rates and infrastructure conditions. During the tour, state engineers noted that inadequate supply allocations have historically compromised the state’s internal distribution, leading to the complete abandonment of several regional branches.
The state also raised international environmental concerns at the Luther Canal layout, where industrial pollution from Pakistani factories impacts the border irrigation network. Presenting water quality data to the panel, officials stated that the inflow of toxic waste from leather plants across the border ruins local soil health, compounding the difficulties faced by border-zone farmers who are already dealing with tight water limits.
