Gehlot urges Badal to go by earlier pacts

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, AUG. 25. The Rajasthan Chief Minister,Mr.Ashok Gehlot, today asked his Punjab counterpart,Mr.Parkash Singh Badal,to go by the spirit of various inter-state agreements made since 1920 on the sharing of the waters of the Ravi-Beas and the Sutlej.

``I am pained to learn from newspaper reports about proceedings in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha quoting your name that no water will be allowed to flow out of Punjab to other adjoining States including Rajasthan,'' Mr.Gehlot said in a letter addressed to Mr.Badal provoked by a statement reportedly made by the latter three days back.

``I would like to point out that a valid and binding agreement between the concerned States operates as law between the parties and the rights and obligations of the contesting States have to be determined in the light of the terms and conditions of the agreement,'' Mr.Gehlot noted referring to the agreements between the two States in the past.

Rajasthan's use of the Ravi-Beas waters has a historical background as it was the erstwhile Maharaja of Bikaner who had pioneered a treaty with the British Government in 1920.``The subsequent agreements on the Ravi-Beas water in 1955 and in 1981 along with the 1959 Bhakra Nangal agreement have been entered into with the sole purpose of equity,'' it has been pointed out.

Mr.Gehlot sought Mr.Badal's attention to the bilateral meeting between the Irrigation Ministers of the two States in Delhi on May 21 this year in which all common issues related to water were deliberated upon in a ``most cordial manner''.

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