Chandigarh, December 7 – Former Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Patron Parkash Singh Badal today expressed his deep sense of gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for approving construction of the Shahpur Kandi dam on the Sutlej river, terming it as another pro-Punjab and pro- Punjabi step in the series of such steps taken by the NDA government recently.
In a statement here, the former CM said the NDA government had decisively reversed the step motherly treatment meted out to Punjab by previous Congress governments by approving the Rs 2715 crore Shahpur Kandi project on the heels of other pro- Punjabi steps like forming SIT to reopen cases against 1984 Sikh genocide perpetrators, increasing msp of foodgrains in keeping with the Dr M S Swaminathan formula and deciding to open the Kartarpur Corridor.
Badal said it gave him a deep sense of satisfaction that the Shahpur Kandi dam would come up downstream of the Ranjit Sagar dam which had been given the green signal by him as chief minister in 1979. “Following this after years of discrimination by Congress regimes at the centre it was left to Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee to commission the project in 2000 and inaugurate the same in 2001. Now the NDA government has started the process to harness the waters of the Sutlej river in their entirety by approving the Shahpur Kandi project downstream of Ranjit Sagar. This will ensure Ravi waters are utilised fully for irrigation purposes as well as power generation instead of flowing wastefully to Pakistan”, he added.
Stating that Punjab would benefit immensely from this project which will be completed in five years, Badal said besides irrigating an additional 5,000 hectares in Punjab, the project will also ensure that irrigation of 1.08 lakh hectares under the UBDC system becomes more efficient. “It will also generate 206 mega watt of power which will strengthen the power department further besides creating employment opportunities for thousands of youth”, he added.