Follow European, Chinese system to channelise rivers

As Shahkot area has been affected with floodwaters for the past 12 days, former Union Home Minister Brij Bhupinder Lally (70), who hails from Kang Khurd village here, shares with Jalandhar Tribune some initiatives which he had taken to prevent flooding in the area.

“I have myself been a victim of floods all these years. This time, the floodwater again hit my village. I have always been insisting that the governments need to channelise the rivers as the Europeans and Chinese do. I have been telling them to take officials there, make them understand their system and get it followed here. While I was in the government in 1996, I got three cunettes set up at Fatehpur Bhagwan, Baupur and Rame villages here, which were more prone to floods at that time. These were set up under the supervision of the Chief Engineer of the Drainage Department at that time. This was meant to prevent the zigzag action of the river, prevent it from meandering like a snake and thus avoid hitting the edges. While the cunette along the riverbed at Baupur was not successful, the other two helped keep a check on floods for a good time,” he said.

“It is not easy to see floods wrecking havoc year after year. I was 35 years old when Shahkot faced floods in 1988, which has been the worst of the times. The floods in 1996 were weak, but that time I had resolved that this should be the last one. Our system had worked well for a good time and there were no floods for 12 years. I just wish that administrators and officials evolve a new system so that the lives of people living along the edges of the rivers could be made easier and tension-free,” he concludes.