The Governor’s Address of 6 March 2026 and the related Budget presentation project a triumphant irrigation narrative. Canal irrigation capacity has reportedly doubled in three years; surface water utilisation has risen to 6.6 MAF; canal water has reached 1,365 locations for the first time; and by year-end, the total area under canal irrigation will approach 7 million acres. On the political stage, these are applause lines. Before a tribunal or in interstate negotiations, they can become admissions against interest.
Punjab’s historic case rests on one proposition: that its waters are finite, its agrarian dependence intense, its groundwater stress severe, and its margin for forced diversion narrow to non-existent. If the state itself proclaims that canal irrigation is expanding dramatically and utilisation has surged, rival claimants can fairly ask: where is the scarcity that underlies Punjab’s resistance?
That is why public language matters.
The is not a dead chapter. The Tribunal has received yet another extension, up to 5 August 2026, and recent field-level activity triggered fresh protests. Every official claim made by Punjab’s own government can be used to test the consistency of its larger case.
No one is suggesting Punjab should conceal genuine gains in canal rehabilitation. But there is a difference between reporting incremental improvement and staging a breakthrough narrative. A state engaged in a live water dispute cannot insist it has no water to spare while publicly painting a picture of irrigation abundance.
There is also a practical concern. Farmers across much of Punjab report a very different field reality. Tail-end deprivation remains a persistent complaint in Majha and south-west Punjab alike. The government itself has acknowledged the need to strengthen the Ferozepur Feeder for Abohar in the Fazilka district.
In Majha, the Upper Bari Doab Canal system should have been the backbone of irrigation confidence in Gurdaspur, Amritsar, and Tarn Taran. The complaint remains stubbornly familiar: water does not reach the last mile.
Punjab can thus weaken its own legal and political case without having actually solved the underlying problem.
The second danger lies in strategic omission. Punjab has not pressed the Union government with sufficient energy for the implementation of the on a tributary of the Ravi — one of the more rational water-storage options within the eastern-river framework, approved years ago but episodically pursued.
Equally, the Shahpur Kandi Dam — under construction for decades and now in its final stages — must be made fully operational without further delay. That means both components: the irrigation component to bring water to Gurdaspur and Pathankot, and the hydroelectric component to generate the much-needed power in Punjab. To leave it partially functional is to surrender in practice what Punjab insists upon in principle.
Neither Ujh nor Shahpur Kandi should have been peripheral issues. Punjab must distinguish between what exists on paper, what is operational in the field, and what remains unrealised due to inertia. It has too often oscillated between political outrage and administrative passivity. That now looks even less defensible.
India’s decision in April 2025 to hold the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance altered the policy landscape. The Indian state has signalled a harder position on both western and eastern river questions. Punjab must think not defensively but architecturally — asking what infrastructure, storage, and linkages are now conceivable within constitutional, environmental, and engineering limits.
If the Treaty remains in abeyance or is eventually terminated, India should examine a long-term strategy to connect part of the Chenab system into the Ravi basin. This would be a generational project. It could expand the usable water envelope in the northern sector, reduce wastage, and give both J&K and Punjab more room for long-term planning—offering reassurance that eastern-river stress need not forever be a zero-sum internal contest.
Such a linkage would require serious study, financial commitment, and national resolve. But Punjab’s water politics has too often been trapped between immediate panic and short-term posturing. What is needed is strategic statecraft.
First, Punjab must stop making inflated claims that can rebound against it in interstate disputes. Improvements should be reported soberly, not theatrically.
Second, the state must press New Delhi for time-bound completion of Shahpur Kandi in full irrigation and power, both, and for implementation of the Ujh project and optimisation of related Ravi system assets.
Third, Punjab must help shape the next national water architecture in a manner that protects its agrarian base while aligning with wider Indian interests.
The great error would be to confuse speechmaking with strategy. River-water disputes are not decided by applause. They are shaped by consistency, caution, hydrology, and hard infrastructure.
If the state is serious about its rights, it must learn to speak as a litigant, plan as a strategist, and build as a sovereign partner in India’s changing water future.
KBS Sidhu, IAS (retd.), former Special Chief Secretary, Punjab. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
