DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Wednesday said that Punjab has sought a pending payment of Rs 113.24 crore for maintenance of the Bhakra canal from the Haryana government. Cheema said that Punjab sent a bill of Rs 113.24 crore to the Haryana government for its payment.

"We have found a pending liability of Rs 113.24 crore and the bill for the same has been sent to the Haryana government," he told the media after a Cabinet meeting here.

Cheema lambasted the previous regimes for not recovering payment from the Haryana government in this regard.

The pending payment was discovered during an internal audit conducted by the Punjab government, said officials, claiming that the Haryana government had not been making the payment for maintenance of the Bhakra main line canal for the past many years.

Regarding the Bhakra Beas Management Board's latest move of making payment of Rs 8.58 crore to the Centre for deployment of the CISF at the Bhakra-Nangal dam project, Cheema said the state government has already made it clear that the CISF deployment is unacceptable.

The minister said that the Punjab Assembly had also passed a resolution, rejecting the Centre's proposed deployment of the CISF personnel at the Bhakra-Nangal dam project of the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB). Asserting that Punjab Police has been providing security at the dams for the last 70 years, Cheema said, "Under a well-planned conspiracy, the Centre and the Haryana government were trying to snatch Punjab's waters through such tactics." "We will not let the CISF be deployed nor will we bear any expenditure arising out of the deployment...We will seek a legal opinion over the matter," he added.

In its latest move, the BBMB has made a payment of Rs 8.58 crore to the Centre for deployment of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at the Bhakra-Nangal project.

The move came despite the Punjab Assembly unanimously passing a resolution against the CISF deployment on July 11.

The resolution stated that deployment of the CISF would increase the unnecessary and avoidable financial burden on Punjab and on other partner states.

Punjab, being the major contributor to the expenditure of the BBMB, will have to bear this additional expenditure also, it said.

"The installations are within the territorial jurisdiction of Punjab or Himachal Pradesh. It is the duty of the state government concerned to maintain the law and order and also provide security to these installations within their respective jurisdiction as per law," the resolution said.

The additional financial implication due to deployment of the CISF was going to be Rs 49.32 crore per annum, it said.

(editor@dailyworld.in)