Punjab will raise its exclusive claim over Chandigarh as its capital at the North Zone Council meeting. CM Bhagwant Mann may address the issue directly.

The Punjab government will bring up the state’s “exclusive right on UT of Chandigarh as its capital” once more during the forthcoming North Zone Council (NZC) meeting in Gurgaon on November 17 amid calls for autonomy.

The subject was removed from the NZC standing committee meeting last October in Chandigarh, referring to it as a “bilateral issue” between Punjab and Haryana.

The Punjab government’s sources, however, stated that the matter would be addressed this time at all costs. “The Ministry of External Affairs received a letter from the government asking to add it on the agenda. The agenda document we obtained, however, indicates that the matter is considered settled. I have not yet verified whether it has changed. Tomorrow, I will have the opportunity to resume it. After the Panjab University scandal, the Center should now exercise caution. It’s too heated a topic to deal with. Bilateral resolution is not an option for such matters. If the North Zone Council is not to be involved in these matters, what is its purpose? “The state government is determined to take it up,” a government official stated.

The chief minister of Punjab, Bhagwant Mann, is expected to attend the meeting, the government official said. When a state’s chief minister is present at a meeting and vocally bringing up the matter, how can anyone argue otherwise? CM has not yet made up his mind on attending the meeting. He will definitely raise it if it is decided. “It is irrelevant if it is not on the agenda,” he stated.

Last year’s meeting was not attended by CM Mann.

Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Delhi, and Ladakh are represented among the chief secretaries and administrative secretaries attending the summit.

“What’s the use of gathering 100 officials from six states and the center for a meeting and spending crores from the exchequer if the problems are not resolved? We are often asked to settle the problems bilaterally by the Center’s officials. So why are we having this meeting? “What?” he inquired.

68 topics were discussed at the summit last year, and Punjab and Haryana quarreled over a number of them, including the controversial Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal project. Others, like SYL, were scheduled for the following meeting, while other topics were postponed.

As the groundwater report made clear, Punjab had been adamantly against the SYL Canal project, claiming that it lacked water. Additionally, the state insisted that Punjab receive a portion of the Yamuna’s water supply, a demand that Haryana rejected.

Three Punjab-related concerns are probably going to be discussed.

The SYL project, sharing from the Yamuna waters, and the installation of micro hydel plants on 27 slopes on the Bhakra Main Line are the three Punjab-related topics on the agenda this year.