Week on, just 4 gaps filled in Jalandhar dist

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Janian Chahal (Jalandhar), August 26

The Army, NDRF, SDRF, administration, NGOs and locals have taken up the Herculean task of jointly plugging 18 breaches for over a week now. But they have been able to plug just four gaps so far.

The task requires 5-lakh cubic feet of boulders, 27 tonnes of wire to make cages and 20 lakh sacks of sand and earth and several crores of rupees. Of 18 breaches in the district, 10 are in dhussi bundh at Phillaur and 8 at Lohian.

During a visit to Raiwal Dona village near Lohian, 1,200 MGNREGA workers from 40 villages of two blocks can be seen filling sandbags.

Terming the floods in Jalandhar as a catastrophe, the district administration on Monday took the media on a tour around the Lohian belt and shared the activities being carried out to plug the breaches and provide relief to the people.

Only 120 ft of the total 500-ft-wide breach at Janian Chahal village has been plugged so far. “Other breaches in Lohian will be plugged once this one is completed as the supply lines have been cut further,” said DC Varinder K Sharma.

“On the CM’s orders, the supply of boulders outside Punjab was cut off for two days. All trucks were roped in to bring stones from Pathankot to Kamaalpur village in Lohian. Each stone weighing 40 to 80 kg is being manually unloaded and then reloaded in tractor-trailers. At the site, each stone is again unloaded and taken by volunteers to the breach point.”

Meanwhile, the DC shared the pictures of SDMs Paramvir Singh and Charumita Shekhar trying to pull out the dead cattle by tying ropes around their horns. “So far, 55 head of cattle have been found dead,” officials said.

Meanwhile, people in most villages, including Mehrajwala and Gatti Peer Baksh, have started cleaning their houses as the water level receded there. But villages, including Nal and Mundi Chohlian, still have 6-ft-deep water and the area is accessible only by boats.

Still a long way to go

• Of total 18 breaches in Jalandhar district alone, 10 are in dhussi bundh at Phillaur and 8 at Lohian 
• Of the total 500-ft-wide breach at Janian Chahal village, only 201 feet has been plugged so far