Farmers hold protest against Irrigation Dept

Tribune News Service

Mansa, May 3

In the absence of water for irrigation in distributaries, including Uddat and Musa branches in the district, farmers today staged a protest against the Irrigation Department. The protest was led by Ram Singh Bhenibagha, president of the BKU (Ugrahan), Mansa.

For the past one week, there is no water in the distributaries after a breach occurred in both branches near Kishangarh Pharmahi in the Bhikhi block of Mansa district. However, the department took an initiative to repair the branch but failed to repair it. It had affected over 36 villages here.

Ram Singh Bhenibagha said, “Earlier, we have urged officials of the Irrigation Department to keep a check on the distributaries as this was a crucial period for the cotton crop. However, it failed to pay heeds to their demands.”

He said, “The water distributaries here witnessed breaches and these were under repair. The repair work should have been done within a day or two but even after more than a week, the department had failed to repair the same after halting the flow of water in these water channels.”

“On other hand, there are guidelines from the government to sow cotton between April 15 to May 15. But now, there is no water in these distributaries leaving farmers in the lurch. Residents are also left with no drinking water. Today we staged the protest against the executive engineer over the failure to release water in this crucial time. An irrigation official managed to escape from the venue. Later, the Station House Officer intervened and brought the official on stage. He assured us that water would be released by tomorrow," he said.Executive Engineer, Irrigation, Virendra Goyal, said: “The water will be released by tomorrow after repair work.”