Even two months after floods, affected families not sure of returning home

Gurbaxpuri

Tarn Taran, September 10

Though water level in the Sutlej has receded, uncertainty still prevails among the residents of Muthianwala village, located on the India-Pakistan border, as to when they would shift to their houses that they were forced to leave after floodwaters inundated them.

Budha Singh, a 55-year-old farmer from the village, is one among the 30 families that had taken shelter in Gurdwara Gutpatsar Sahib in Muthianwala village. Budha Singh, who has 4.5 acres of agricultural land, said on Sunday that he left his home built in the Mand area and managed to come to a safe place along with his family members and livestock on July 7, the day water entered their houses. Since then, he has been staying in the gurdwara along with his family members and cattle, partaking of the langar to survive.

Budha Singh said that he went to visit his house on Saturday and saw that its roof and walls had collapsed. The complex was still waterlogged and the ground was slush, not fit to keep his livestock for fear of contracting any disease. The foul smell made the place uninhabitable. The makeshift shed constructed for the livestock too had collapsed.

The wheat stored in the iron drum for the family had rotten, clothes and other article too had been damaged. His crops planted on 4.5 acres of land that he owns had been destroyed. Above all, sand and silt from the river had got deposited in the fields rendering it infertile. Budha Singh had four cows and he used to earn money selling their milk to meet his expenditure which is no longer the case now. Not even a single penny has been received from the administration or the state government as compensation to the flood affected families, he said. There were a number of families that had taken shelter elsewhere because of the floods but have no hope of returning to their homes in the near future as their houses are still surrounded by water.

The residents alleged that the state government was not serious about rehabilitating them and no policy has even been announced in this regard till date.

Baba Angrej Singh, head of Gurdwara Gutpatsar Sahib, Muthianwala, said that as many as 50 families and more than 400 livestock had taken shelter at the gurdwara for over two months now and there was an acute shortage of dry and green fodder for the animals.

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