India News | BJP, Cong Spar in Assembly over Scrapped Dadupur Nalvi Canal Project

Chandigarh, Mar 10 (PTI) Ruling BJP and opposition Congress sparred over the now scrapped Dadupur Nalvi canal project in Haryana, with Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini telling the assembly the high court has issued no order that the canal should be reconstructed.

Congress MLAs also staged a brief walkout from the assembly over the issue.

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During the Question Hour, Ambala City Congress MLA Nirmal Singh raised the issue and asked whether the Punjab and Haryana High Court had passed a judgment on the canal's reconstruction, and if so, what is the action the government in taking on that.

Nirmal Singh also said that the canal would have helped recharge the water table in the area but the project was scrapped by the BJP government a few years ago.

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Responding to the opposition member's question, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mahipal Dhanda said the government does not have knowledge about any such order passed by the high court.

Intervening in the debate, Chief Minister Saini, too, said no order has been passed by the high court for the reconstruction of the canal.

Training guns at the opposition benches, Saini said this is a sensitive issue and has seen a lot of politics. "The court has not passed any such order that the canal should be built there (reconstructed)," Saini said.

However, with the high court last year striking down a provision to de-notify tracts of land acquired for public purpose, Saini said the state government will move the Supreme Court to challenge the HC order.

He said Haryana's Advocate General has opined that the decision of the High Court could be challenged by filing a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court.

The preparation for submitting the SLP is underway, and it is expected to be filed soon after it is reviewed by the Advocate General, he said.

Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who was joined by other Congress MLAs, claimed the government had come unprepared on the issue.

As some treasury and opposition benches sparred on the issue, Hooda sought to know from the ruling benches, "Whether the government will construct Dadupur Nalvi canal -- the government should reply in Yes or No".

Speaker Harvinder Kalyan did not allow immediate discussion on the issue which the opposition benches insisted on.

The chief minister has given a reply already and if a notice is given for a discussion by the opposition, it would be considered during the current session of assembly, Kalyan said.

The Congress members kept on asking the government if it would reconstruct the canal. With no answer forthcoming from the treasury benches, they staged a brief walkout from the Assembly.

The Dadupur Nalvi irrigation project was conceptualised in 1985 and approved in 2005 by the then Congress government to recharge the groundwater and meet the irrigation needs in Yamunanagar, Kurukshetra and Ambala districts.

The state government had decided to scrap the project in 2017 after it was not found viable. The then M L Khattar government had decided to de-notify the land and return it to landowners.

At that time, the opposition Congress had condemned the denotification of the project, describing the state government's move a "grave injustice, betrayal and deception with farmers of northern Haryana".

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)