Sutlej in spate, Ashu visits adjoining areas

LUDHIANA: Keeping in the view the heavy rains lashing the state and high alert issued by the Punjab Government, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu and Deputy Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Agrawal visited the areas adjoining to the Sutlej today to review the preventive measures.

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 18

Keeping in the view the heavy rains lashing the state and high alert issued by the Punjab Government, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu and Deputy Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Agrawal visited the areas adjoining to the Sutlej today to review the preventive measures. The situation in the district was a bit stressful but completely under control.

During his visit to several areas alongside the Sutlej, Ashu instructed the authorities concerned to take immediate action on anything reported by the local people regarding a breach or flow of water. Expressing complete satisfaction over the flood-prevention arrangements, he advised the officers to remain in the field to monitor the situation.

He said the situation in Ludhiana district was good better than the other districts, so there was no need for evacuation of villagers. He was also accompanied by MLA Sanjay Talwar, Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu, Municipal Commissioner Kanwal Preet Kaur Brar, SDM Ludhiana (West) Amarinder Singh Malhi and other officials.

The Deputy Commissioner held a meeting with the senior officials at the Bachat Bhawan here. He said negligence shown by any officer or employee in the prevention of floods and any emergency would not be tolerated at all. All departmental officers/employees would not leave the headquarters without prior approval until further orders and would also keep their mobile phones on 24 hours.

All Sub-Divisional Magistrates/Tehsildars/DROs have been asked to make sure that the flood control rooms set up in the tehsil headquarters are functioning properly. Besides, it should be made sure that the control room phones are kept on and the employees are present on duty.

The Executive Engineer, Drainage, Ludhiana, was instructed to take special care of the 27 points identified during an inspection. The Sutlej should be monitored for 24 hours, said the DC.

Besides, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Tehsildars and Naib Tehsildars were instructed to visit those 27 points in their respective constituencies and report action taken.

The DC said the Irrigation Department would make sure that the distributaries were cleaned so that there was no damage to crops by floods.