Farmers protest poor water supply

Our Correspondent

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Abohar, July 1

Farmers of the neighbouring Sriganganagar held protests at three places over “poor” water management here today.

Some farmers assembled on the Abohar-Sriganganagar road and burnt the effigy of Rajasthan Irrigation Minister Dr Ram Pratap Sahu, alleging inefficient working.

He should have taken timely action to get 2,000-cusecs share of water restored into the Gang (Bikaner) canal, they said.

Hundreds of farmers responded to the call given by the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha and assembled at Panchayat Dharamshala near the railway station. They marched to the office of the Superintending Engineer (canals), disrupting traffic on their way.

SE HL Meena arranged a talk between former MLA Het Ram Beniwal and Chief Engineer RK Chaudhary who was camping at the Harike barrage in Punjab. Chaudhary claimed that 1,771 cusecs of water had been released and was expected to touch Khakha head tomorrow.

Beniwal said the sabha would bring administrative work to halt if water was not released in sub-canals by July 7. Farmers also held a meeting in Gurdwara Singh Sabha.

Sadulshehar legislator Gurjant Singh Brar pacified them by informing that the Rajasthan government had approached Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and water had been released for Rajasthan after removing hyacinth from the Ferozepur feeder canal. The situation would hopefully improve within next 24 hours.

Residents led by councillor Krishan Chauhan gheraoed the office of the Water Resources Department executive engineer to express anguish over poor availability of water for drinking for the past one week. The officials assured to streamline the supply by Sunday.