Chandigarh (Haryana) [India], March 17 : Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has said that the state government has made a provision of Rs 100 crore for the construction of the SYL canal in the Budget 2026-27 proposals, and the opposition's allegation that there is no mention of the SYL canal in the budget is baseless.
The Chief Minister was replying on Tuesday after the discussion on the Budget Estimates 2026-27 during the Budget Session of the Haryana Assembly.
He said that during the discussion on the budget, members of Congress stated that they had been reading the budget speech for three days and found no mention of the SYL canal.
They also claimed that in nearly 60 years of Haryana's formation, there has never been a budget without a reference to the SYL canal. The Chief Minister clarified that in the Budget 2026-27 documents, Volume III, which presents detailed estimates of capital expenditure, a provision of Rs. 100 crore has been clearly made under the sub-head for the construction of the SYL canal on page number 204, according to a release.
He further said that, as per the records of budget speeches during the Congress tenure from 2005 to 2014, the SYL canal was mentioned only in two years, 2005-06 and 2006-07.
In the remaining eight budget speeches, the term "SYL" was not mentioned at all. Moreover, out of those ten years, only in two years, 2013-14 and 2014-15, was a provision of merely Rs. 10 lakh made for the construction of the SYL canal. In the other eight years, not even a single rupee was allocated under this sub-head.
Saini said that the present government, on the other hand, has been consistently making a provision of Rs. 100 crore every year from 2016-17 to 2025-26. He added that in paragraph 36 of the Governor's Address delivered on February 20, 2026, it has also been stated: "My government is fully committed to protecting Haryana's rights over its waters. We are fully committed to the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal."