Looking forward: Desilt riverbed before rains, allow mining

Residents of Shahkot villages are witnessing the worst floods this year. It has already been 17 days since they are living in floodwaters and there is a continuous risk of more water gushing to this side if the monsoon remains as active as it has been.

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If a dry spell doesn’t start, it could take the flood-hit villages two months or so to get a permanent relief. Even today as I toured to Gatta Mundi Kasu village, I had to walk through 1.5-ft-deep water in Mehraj village to reach the breach point. If things go as per plan, it still will take five more days for the 925-ft breach to get plugged as it is 48-ft deep in the mid-point.

Officials of the drainage department have told me that the water level in the Sutlej is going up as 37,000 cusecs of more water has been released. I have been continuously making a suggestion that stone spurs be used along embankments as the pressure of water is high and there is a backflow from Gidderpindi railway bridge, but to no avail.

For the past few years, I have also been telling officials that the bed of the river has risen, lowering its water carrying capacity. We need to desilt the riverbed during the dry spell to avoid floods for which allowing mining here is one solution.

I also strongly believe that the plan of the state government to have paddy re-transplanted here will not work. It seems more of a gimmick to slow down the process of awarding compensation. The saplings of paddy take 25 days to get readied. Even it they had started getting ready in the nurseries 10 days ago, it would take 15 more days by which the time to sow it will already be over. In case even if it works, the farmers still need to be compensated for they have incurred losses owing to labour charges, use of fuel etc., earlier. The government claims on compensation seem to be more of a superficial exercise.”

(As told to Deepkamal Kaur)