Delay in canal cleaning, farmers left high & dry

Our Correspondent

Abohar, April 22

The entire canal system in the Abohar irrigation circle — spread over Abohar, Balluana and Fazilka constituencies – has been closed for three weeks for the cleaning of sub-canals. The purpose was to ensure sufficient supply of water to the tail-end villages. But no work has been done.

The authorities had promised to release water on Sunday to facilitate the sowing of cotton as per the schedule suggested by agricultural scientists, but it was not done.

Upset over it, hundreds of farmers from Ghallu, Khippanwali, Azamwala, Katehra, Ramkot and Bodiwala Peetha on Sunday staged a protest near Ghallu village on the Abohar-Fazilka stretch of the national highway. Braving 41°C temperature, women too raised slogans against the government for water mismanagement.

Senior officials, including SP (D) Vinod Kumar; SP Abohar Amarjit Singh Matwani; DSP (Balluana) Rahul Bhardwaj and Mukhtiar Singh Rana, Executive Engineer, Irrigation Department; negotiated with the protesters. The protesters were led by Khippanwali sarpanch Satya Dev, Jagjit Singh Gill and Rajinder Singh Brar.

Farmers said that during the decade-long rule of the SAD-BJP alliance, the area was neglected. Sub-canals were neither repaired nor cleaned, thereby economically ruining the farmers in the tail-end villages.

At that time, Congress leaders had led farmers’ protests. But after the party formed the government a year ago, nothing substantial was done to improve the situation.

After about two-hour protest, the farmers agreed to defer the dharna by 48 hours. XEN Rana assured to start the cleaning work by arranging JCB machines on Monday. Workers under the MGNREGA scheme would also be deployed to clean the Arniwala minor and other sub-canals manually, he said.