India, Sept. 14 -- This monsoon, Punjab is drowning. Rivers have spilled over, embankments have broken, and villages lie submerged. Families are stranded on rooftops, fields resemble lakes, and relief camps overflow. Yet the crisis is not confined to rural districts. The tricity of Chandigarh, Mohali, and Panchkula, sitting at the heart of this ecosystem, shares the same fate. The water that devastates fields upstream clogs drains, weakens infrastructure and threatens the canals that sustain our lives.

It may feel unimaginable today, with floodwaters still surging, but Punjab's tragedy has always been one of extremes. The same land that reels under excess in August often thirsts by October. This swing from deluge to deficit is not an acc...